Time After Time
by mille libri
Summary: She stayed in Hawkins and was broken; he got out and came back broken. Now Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers need each other to navigate the horrors they'll face and protect the children in their care - and to heal one another in the process.
1. Drivin' My Life Away

_Thank you for reading! This will follow canon, on- and offscreen scenes, through post-season 3 (and hopefully season 4!). I do take suggestions, so if there are scenes you want to see, feel free to let me know._

* * *

"Time After Time"  
_If you're lost, you can look and you will find me_  
_Time after time_  
_If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting_  
_Time after time_

_\- _Cyndi Lauper

* * *

"Drivin' My Life Away"  
_Ooh, I'm drivin' my life away_  
_Lookin' for a better way for me_  
\- Eddie Rabbitt

The windshield wipers really were slapping out a tempo, Jim Hopper reflected, but it was less than a perfect rhythm with the song on the radio. He reached out a hand, twisting the dial, not in the mood for Eddie Rabbitt, even in a more upbeat mood.

The next station was playing Patsy Cline. Hopper was feeling so lonely, she had that right, but it wasn't crazy. It was the only thing that made any damn sense.

He twisted the dial again. He wasn't in the mood for music, but driving in silence with nothing to listen to but his thoughts would have him driving off a bridge long before he got back to the god-forsaken burg of Hawkins, Indiana.

Irony: that he, Hawkins's least-favorite son, should be fleeing back to it as a safe harbor to take over its police force. How some of the old-time cops would laugh at that. He hoped to hell all of them had retired long ago, or this new job would suck even worse than it already promised to.

Picking up the beer can he held snugged between his thighs, Hopper drained it and threw it out the open window.

At least nothing ever happened in Hawkins. Youthful indiscretions like his own had been the worst the tiny Hawkins police force had had to deal with in his memory, and he couldn't imagine much had changed. On the one hand, he had always hated that bucolic bliss and was pretty sure he was going to be bored out of his mind. On the other hand … he didn't have it in him to be a real cop anymore. He had looked too hard into the abyss to feel anything but sympathy for those who were lost in it. And if he couldn't solve his own problems, how the hell was he supposed to be out there working for the good of others?

A memory flashed through his mind, of Sara giggling, holding his badge up above her head, running off with it, as he chased after her, annoyed because he was late for work. The idea that he could ever have been annoyed with her sickened him. He wasn't worthy of being a father. Or a husband, apparently. Not that he blamed Diane. She wanted to heal, to move forward with her life, to have another child someday, and Hopper was too frozen and terrified and lost to do any more than stand still. And even that was too much to ask some days.

He twisted the dial again, from the Righteous Brothers to the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards' screams should have been enough to take his mind off things, but they sounded too much like the screams in Hopper's head. More dial-twisting. A commercial now, for some local insurance company. Like insurance helped. Oh, sure, it saved you a little money on the funeral, but it didn't make the person you loved any less dead, and it didn't dig your heart up out of the coffin where it lay next to her.

Mile after mile of farm rolled by outside his window, bringing him inevitably closer to Hawkins. He didn't know why he had called Hawkins Police that day, the day he knew for sure that he couldn't go on being a New York City cop, that Diane wasn't going to let him go on being her husband, and that he didn't know if he was even a person any more. He'd been sitting at his desk, contemplating taking his gun to some dark recess of Central Park and ending it all for good, when before he'd been aware of what he was doing, he found himself with the phone in his hand, dialing directory assistance. Why Hawkins, instead of some random town in some random state where no one knew him? Nothing drew him back there. His parents were long gone, his mother of the cancer not long after Hopper had left to join the army, and his father packed up and gone as soon as she was decently in the ground. Hopper didn't know where he'd gone, and he couldn't say he cared that much. The old bastard hadn't been much of a father to begin with. Granddad had been the one to teach Jim everything that mattered, and he was gone, too, before Jim even entered high school.

As for friends—well, he hadn't had that many. Oh, he'd screwed a fair number of girls, and he bet most of them were still in town, which was likely to be awkward mostly and entertaining occasionally. And he'd hung out with a bunch of losers who were probably boring bean-counters now, married with a gaggle of kids.

There was only one person he really wanted to see. It was probably stupid, thinking someone who had never left Hawkins could understand what he had gone through, but Joyce had always listened back in high school, sitting there bumming his smokes and letting him talk about how much he hated his life and how bad he wanted to get out of Hawkins and never look back.

He knew she was still there—after he'd gotten the job as chief of police, he'd looked her up. Not Horowitz anymore, but Byers. She'd gone and married Lonnie Byers, the idiot. Hopper couldn't imagine that being a happy marriage. Lonnie had only ever been interested in himself and what he could get out of someone. It still pissed Hopper off that she'd chosen Lonnie, and it pissed him off even more that he still remembered the exact shape and color of her big brown eyes.

And what did he think, anyway, that he was going to sit down with her and spill his guts about Sara and Diane and the war and everything that had happened since the last time they'd seen each other and she was going to magically make it all go away?

"Don't be a chump, Hopper," he muttered. He didn't know the song on the radio, but he spun the dial anyway, savagely. Static.

Finally, something on the radio that reflected what was inside him.

Popping open another can of beer, he pressed his foot down harder on the gas pedal. Might as well get there faster. Whatever lay ahead of him in Hawkins, it had to be better than the demons he was carrying with him.


	2. What Becomes of the Broken Hearted

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted"

_The roots of love grow all around_

_But for me they come a-tumblin' down_

_Every day heartaches grow a little stronger_

_I can't stand this pain much longer_

_\- _Jimmy Ruffin

Hopper had been back in Hawkins about three weeks when he saw her for the first time. She was behind the counter at Melvald's—which was pretty damn funny, considering how much they'd shoplifted from the place back in high school, Hopper thought.

Her head snapped up as soon as the bell rang above the door, and her big brown eyes got wide when she recognized him. God, she was thin. Too thin. She'd never been heavy, but now her face was practically all eyes. And she looked so scared, like she was ready for whatever came in to take another shot at her. Damn Lonnie Byers, anyway, if he could take someone so pretty and funny and full of life and suck it all out of her. Hopper had heard that Lonnie ran out on her a couple of years ago, leaving her with two boys to take care of on her own. He couldn't help envying her anyway—at least she had her kids.

"Hopper," she said, her throaty voice unchanged and full of wonder.

"Hey, Joyce. How've you been?"

"Oh, you know. You?" That she had heard about him was obvious from the way her hand flew up to cover her mouth as soon as the words came out, and he wanted to tell her, to lean on the counter and bum a smoke and tell her about Sara, about how funny she'd been and how much she'd made him laugh and how she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, until losing her was the worst thing that had ever happened …

But he didn't know this stranger behind the counter, this Joyce Byers, not at all, and he couldn't tell her things, not the way he used to be able to talk to Joyce Horowitz.

He didn't know what to say into the silence, so he settled for, "Yeah."

"I was surprised you came back."

Hopper shrugged. "They had an opening, I needed a job. So here I am."

"Welcome back?"

With a bitter chuckle, he mimed cheerleading with pom-poms. "Rah rah." They looked at each other, silence hanging heavy between them. "I heard about Lonnie."

"Come to gloat? Yeah, you were right. Happy now?" For all the residual anger in her voice, at least she sounded like the Joyce he used to know. He remembered the fight they'd had about Lonnie—the fights, really—and how he had predicted an unhappy end to the relationship. So had everyone, but he had been the loudest because it had hurt him the most.

"Not so much, no."

Her face softened. "Hop. I really am sorry. About—well, about a lot of things."

"Yeah, me, too." He cleared his throat and gestured toward the pharmacy. "Hey, the doc around back there?"

She nodded, and he tipped his hat to her before heading back to get his prescription refilled.

* * *

Joyce watched him go, her heart aching for him. She wished there was something she could do, something she could say, to ease the pain she saw burning in the back of those blue eyes she had once known so well. Thinking of Jonathan and Will, she tried to imagine what it would be like to lose one of them, and couldn't see straight for the pain of it. And when you had such a big heart, the way Hopper did, and you put so much of it into anything you could love, and then you lost it—it must feel like having your heart ripped out of your chest.

But what could she say? Words wouldn't bring his daughter back, or fix his marriage, any more than words made Jonathan feel better every time his father missed a weekend, or made Will understand why Lonnie only liked him when they were doing things that Lonnie wanted to do. She did her best, tried to be everything to them, father and mother, but boys needed a father. They at least needed a mother who didn't work all the time, who was home when they got home from school, who knew how to cook and wasn't afraid of her shadow and didn't lose her keys all the time and … and had her act together. And that wasn't Joyce. Not now, and maybe it never had been. Lonnie said so, that she'd never been all there, that she'd never been good enough. Maybe he was right.

Watching Hopper's broad back—she'd forgotten how tall he was, the way he filled up a room—Joyce remembered that Hopper had thought she was good enough. How he had listened when she talked, and encouraged her to study harder and get better grades and get out of Hawkins, even go to college. But it had been easier to believe when Lonnie told her she didn't need to worry, that he'd take care of her.

Joyce shook her head. What a load of hooey that had been. What an idiot she'd been to believe it.

As she so often did, she resolved to do better, to be more of what Jonathan and Will needed. She was lucky to have them, and she never wanted to forget how lucky or take them for granted. Will had a birthday coming up, and somehow it felt like if she could get him just the right thing—not something too expensive, of course, but something he would really love—then maybe she could get back on track. And then if she could save up enough for the camera Jonathan wanted—

Hopper turned around, tucking a bottle of pills into his pocket, and ambled back toward the front of the store. "Joyce."

"Hopper. Have a nice day!" she called after him, the words too much of an ingrained habit to forget. He paused a moment at the door, as if he wanted to respond, and she braced for the sarcasm. But then he went through the door, silently, leaving the bell ringing above him as though he'd been just another customer.

Joyce would have preferred the sarcasm.


	3. White Rabbit

"White Rabbit"

_When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead_

_And the white knight is talking backwards_

_And the red queen's off with her head_

\- Jefferson Airplane

The nights were the worst. Hopper could make it through his days, despite the boredom of the job and the incredible stupidity of some of his cops and the mind-numbing tedium of living in Hawkins. A steady flow of cigarettes, supplemented with coffee and anxiety meds, took the edge off and made the days bearable.

But at night, when the TV went to snow and he turned off the lights and lay there alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts—that's when the demons came out. The exquisite pain of every memory of Sara's all-too-brief life playing against the screen of the dark wall, the anguish of reliving every moment of what-if, every time he could have done something differently and maybe she would have lived. It was that kind of thing, that attitude that everything was his responsibility, and that he could have done something, that had been the final straw for Diane. She'd accused him of making everything about him, of having some kind of God complex—or, at other times, a martyr complex—and of forgetting Sara while he wallowed in his own pain.

Unspoken was that he had forgotten Diane, too, and that was true. Lost, unable to find safe ground, he couldn't reach for her, didn't know how to be the husband of a grieving mother any more than he knew how to get past being a grieving father.

When the ghosts of his daughter and his wife—not dead, but as lost to him as though she might have been—rose up and began speaking to him, that's when the coffee gave way to beer and then the harder stuff, and the anxiety meds gave way to whatever else he could convince his doctor to prescribe for him. And Hopper had always been good at convincing people, so it was a pretty wide range.

Enough stuff thrown down his throat and oblivion would come, usually while he lay on the couch watching the static on the TV, far, far into the night. And then morning would jerk him awake, the sun over the pond gleaming through the window, breaking into the oblivion he had tried so hard to reach. He'd roll over and over on the couch, getting another ten minutes here, half an hour there, but with the deeper sleep broken the dreams came, the ones where he reached for Sara in the water and had to watch her slipping away, or she was trapped in a burning building and he got close enough to watch the flames engulf her, or worse, when reality gave way altogether and she turned into something grotesque. So he would eventually drag himself off the couch, his head pounding, and the caffeine and nicotine infusions would start all over again.

Other nights, he tried to stave off the darkness and the memories and the guilt in more … creative ways. Hawkins had a fair number of lonely single women and divorcees, and for some reason many of them were drawn to the new police chief. A few because they remembered him in high school, a few because they liked the power or got off on uniforms and the illusion of authority, and a disturbing number because they were drawn to his pain and wanted to fix him, or mother him, or drown their own sorrows with him.

Still, sooner or later they all fell asleep, and then it was just like any other night, only with an awkward good-bye waiting for him in the morning. He had slowed down his progress through the ladies of Hawkins recently, and only partially because he was afraid eventually he would run out and there would only be one left … and he could never have used her like that, anyway. No. Joyce Byers was off limits.

All in all, though, it wasn't the worst life. Hawkins was just what he remembered, and the job was easy because nothing ever happened. And if Sara haunted his dreams, at least that was better than forgetting what she looked like, which he couldn't have borne.

* * *

For once, Joyce had gotten up early on a Saturday morning. Most nights she had such trouble falling asleep that mornings came hard, and the effort of getting up in time to make the boys breakfast was more than she could manage.

But she had determined to turn over a new leaf, to be a better mom, so out of bed it was.

Only once she was upright and half-dressed did she realize she could already smell bacon. And coffee. And from the kitchen she heard the high-pitched giggle that always made her smile. She eased her door open just slightly as she was buttoning her shirt so she could hear them talking to each other.

"Can you do the pancakes in funny shapes again?"

"You mean, like your face?"

Will giggled again. "Yeah."

"Sure."

Jonathan was so grown-up, so good with his brother. Too much of both, Joyce worried. A teenager should rebel more, have more fun, go out with his friends. God knew she had done all three. But Jonathan seemed to prefer staying home, taking care of his little brother, and taking pictures. His pictures looked good to Joyce, and she knew he was serious about photography and eventually about film school, but still … She couldn't help feeling as though, if she hadn't been such a mess, Jonathan could have had a more normal life.

"You hanging out with your weird friends again today?" Jonathan asked. She could hear the sizzle as a pancake hit the skillet.

"They're not weird."

"Come on, kid. Of course they are. So are you."

"Well, then, you are, too!" Will sounded pleased with his comeback.

"Sure am. Who'd want to be boring like the rest of Hawkins, anyway?"

"Isn't there anyone you want to be friends with?"

Jonathan thought that one over. He was often more willing to be honest with his little brother than he was with anyone else. "Maybe. A couple of kids. But … I doubt they'd get me."

They probably wouldn't. Hawkins was the same old boring one-size-fits-all place it had been when Joyce was in high school. Will was lucky he'd found a few other boys who liked geeky space stuff and books. They'd started playing some weird game where they rolled dice and pretended to be fantasy characters a year or so ago. Joyce didn't understand it, but it made Will happy, so that was all she really cared about. They spent hours in Mike Wheeler's basement. Mike's mom Karen was a nice woman, but very … traditional. It was hard to believe she'd given birth to someone as unusual as Mike.

Slipping out of her bedroom, Joyce came into the kitchen, surprised as always by the bright smiles her boys had for her. Some part of her always felt like she didn't deserve them to be happy to see her, not when she screwed up so many things. "Smells great, Jonathan. Thanks for cooking." Joyce herself was a terrible cook. Jonathan had learned out of self-defense, and his food was so much better than anything she could make.

"Did you get enough sleep?" he asked her, giving her a concerned look. She was filled with guilt all over again. It shouldn't have been her teenage son's worry how she slept.

"I did." She hadn't, but it didn't matter. "I could use some of that coffee, though." Cup in hand, she went over to the table, resting a hand on the top of Will's head. He had pushed his half-eaten pancakes aside and was drawing a picture, his face intent. She recognized the robed character on the page, a more and more frequent subject these days. "What's Will the Wise up to?"

"After school yesterday, Mike said we might be going in a cave, searching for a dragon."

"A dragon? Can you guys take down a dragon?"

Will grinned at her. "Of course."

"Of course. Will the Wise always knows what to do." Over Will's head, Joyce and Jonathan traded smiles.

Jonathan poured more batter, evidently for Joyce's pancakes. He liked to feed her, worrying that she was too thin. "What kind of spells are you going to use?" he asked Will.

As Will launched into an enthusiastic description, Joyce watched her boys, thinking how lucky she was that they were so good together, and so good with her. Maybe she'd done something right after all.


	4. Walk on By

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Walk on By"

_Foolish pride_

_Is all that I have left_

_So let me hide_

_The tears and the sadness_

_\- Dionne Warwick_

Joyce was restocking a shelf full of laundry detergent when she heard the door bell jingle and heavy footsteps coming across the floor. "Be right there!" she called.

Hopper came around the corner, lifting his hat slightly, although there was nothing else about him that would have indicated he knew her at all. Come to think of it, he'd probably have been more polite if it had been someone else, Joyce thought. "Don't worry about it," he said as he went past. "I know the way."

"Sure. Of course you do." She watched him walk down the aisle to the pharmacy. Another prescription, then.

By now everyone knew about him, including Dr. Barnes behind the counter, but as long as the prescriptions were legitimate, which they always seemed to be, no one could do anything about his continued abuse of the prescription drugs. Or his drinking. Or the way he slept around. Apparently he was still charming when he wanted to be, enough so that woman after woman overlooked the big flashing red danger sign and thought she could fix him.

Not that Joyce would have known that from talking to him. The most she ever got from him was a tip of the hat and a "Joyce."

And then she'd do what she was doing now—watch him go by and worry that he was going to kill himself, the rate he was going, and worry even more that maybe that was what he was trying to do.

She picked up most of her information from listening to gossip, although even that was hard to do—enough people remembered them being together in high school that they didn't want to talk about him in front of her.

Not that she had any business worrying about him, anyway—she had Jonathan and Will to worry about, and that was enough for any given day.

He came back down the aisle while she was still standing there holding a carton of detergent. "Joyce."

"Hopper."

As he went by, she turned around, suddenly anxious to get something more out of him than that, just to reassure herself. "Nice to see you."

Startled, he stopped, looking at her over his shoulder. "Yeah. Same here." Then he kept going, and she heard the bell jingle again as he left.

Well, that had been a bust. She wished she hadn't said anything. Sighing, she heaved the detergent onto the shelf and reached for the next box.

* * *

In the grocery store, Hopper rounded a corner, his cart full of beer and cold cuts and chips so that anyone who didn't know him—anyone who didn't live in Hawkins—would think maybe he was having a party. Party of one, he thought. Pity party, he added with a bitter smile.

The smile was still on his face when he recognized the small, thin figure in front of him, reaching up for a box of cereal that had been pushed to the back of the top shelf.

Briefly, shamefully, he considered turning around and exiting the aisle, pretending he was never here and hadn't seen her. Then he kicked himself and called himself a coward and continued down the aisle, reaching easily over her head to grasp the box.

Joyce's eyes widened in surprise when she recognized him, and she clutched the box of cereal to her chest when he handed it to her. She was still way too thin, her face drawn and worried and all eyes. Did she never stop to eat? Or did she give the lion's share to her growing boys and go hungry herself?

Without seeming to, Hopper looked over the items in her cart. Other than the pricy new Donkey Kong cereal she was holding, everything else was generic, or on sale. Cans of vegetables five for a dollar, pasta, hamburger.

She must have noticed him looking, even though he had used his best police glance, because she said defensively, "This stuff is new. Will really wanted to try it. All his friends have it."

Her life in three sentences, he thought. Trying to keep up with the middle class of Hawkins on the pittance Donald probably paid her at Melvald's. Skimping and saving so she could buy small treats for the boys.

"Looks like good stuff. I haven't had anything like that in—" He closed his eyes in pain, Sara sneaking up on him the way she did any time he tried to be normal. Because of course the last time he'd eaten whimsical cereal had been with her.

Joyce's face mirrored the pain he felt. She had always been like that, sensitive to the feelings of people around her, taking them on as her own. "Sorry," she whispered.

"Yep." Without another word, he steered his cart around hers and left her there in the aisle with her precious box of cereal.

* * *

On the sidewalk outside the movie theater, waiting in line for the doors to open for _Poltergeist_—a luxury she probably shouldn't have splurged on, but the look on Will's face when she told him they could go had been more than worth it—Joyce saw Hopper coming. Briefly, she wondered if he was seeing the movie, then realized how impossible that would be for him. Ghosts, and a possessed little girl? Not in a million years was he ready for something like that.

To her surprise, he slowed when he saw her. "Joyce."

"Hopper." When he didn't continue on, she hastily added, "This is my son, Will. Will, Chief Hopper."

"Hey, kid." Hopper held out a hand for Will to shake, which Will did, somewhat hesitantly. Why did people shake hands, anyway, Joyce wondered. Seemed like a good way to pass germs along more than anything else. "You sure you're up for this?" He gestured toward the marquee, which spelled out POLTERGEIST in big black letters.

"Yeah! I can handle it," Will said confidently. Joyce wasn't so sure, but she supposed they would see. Truth be told, he was probably more ready for the scary movie than she was. "My mom got us tickets."

Hopper glanced at her, quickly, then looked back at Will. "She's a good mom."

Will nodded. "The best."

Joyce couldn't help but smile. She ruffled Will's hair. "I don't know about that, buddy, but I suppose I have my moments."

"You have lots of them," Will assured her. He moved up in line, leaving Joyce and Hopper looking at one another.

"Good kid," Hopper said. He was impressed by the kid's open face and confidence. You heard a lot about Joyce and her boys, but everything he had seen of them indicated she was doing a good job with them, despite the challenges.

"Thanks. He's … He's going to be someone special," she said, her eyes lingering on him with a look that touched Hopper's heart even as his chest flooded with bitter envy.

"Well. Enjoy the movie," he said gruffly, and he moved off, leaving her to catch up with Will, the specter of Sara in front of him a more haunting image than any film studio could dream up.


	5. Help!

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Help!"

_Help, I need somebody_

_Help, not just anybody_

_\- The Beatles_

Hopper's day had started the same as usual—woken from a stupor by the neighbor's dog while the TV babbled away to itself. A glance at his watch told him he was late for work, again. Lukewarm shower in his tiny bathroom, in which the showerhead was below the level of his head, involving his usual crouching and contortions to rinse the soap out of his hair. Brush the crud of last night's booze and cigarettes off his teeth, begin again with today's layer by washing his pills down with a can of Schlitz while starting on the day's first cigarette. Uniform on, gun in its holster, grab the keys, out the door.

Never changed. Always the same. What he loved and hated about Hawkins in equal measure.

* * *

Joyce had lost track of how many times she had paced Hopper's office. She'd known it was bad, but she'd had no idea he showed up to work this late. She fumbled another cigarette from the pack, getting it between her lips with trembling fingers. Her whole body was shaking so badly it was a wonder she got the thing lit. And then it didn't help, because Will was gone.

Gone. It was almost impossible to believe. Joyce couldn't imagine what could possibly have happened to him in Hawkins. He had ridden his bike home from the Wheelers' hundreds of times, at least, over the last several years. There was no way he'd gotten lost, which meant he had to be hurt somewhere.

To think it had started off like any other morning, hunting for her perennially lost keys while Jonathan made breakfast. That seemed like so long ago, like her reality had been this nameless dread and fear, this holding of the breath waiting for Will to be found, for … years. Decades.

* * *

It still felt like any other morning to Hopper as he pulled into his parking spot in front of the police station—perks of the job, he always got the front spot, no matter how late he showed up. The snarky "Good of you to show" from his secretary, Flo, the lazy 'good mornings' exchanged with his cops, the card game they were in the midde of, feet propped up on their desks. Nothing ever happened in Hawkins, after all.

"Damn! You look like hell, Chief," Callahan said—also just like he did every other morning. The sameness was both comforting and infuriating.

Filling his favorite mug with coffee, Hopper tossed off a one-liner about Callahan's wife, getting the usual laugh.

Flo had followed him from the door. "While you were drinking, or sleeping, or whatever else you deemed so necessary on a Monday morning, Phil Larson called, said some kids were stealing the gnomes out of his garden again." As usual, she plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and stubbed it out in an ashtray kept on Callahan's desk just for that purpose, as far as Hopper could tell.

He chuckled at the idea of the Hawkins police on the trail of the Garden Gnome Gnapper, snagging a doughnut out of the box on the side table.

"Garden gnomes again. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna get right on that."

Flo ignored his sarcasm, proffering a pink slip with a telephone message. "On a more pressing matter, Joyce Byers can't find her son this morning."

Hopper changed around some cards in Powell's hand, ignoring the way his pulse leaped and refusing to consider whether it was because of Joyce or because of the idea of something happening to a kid. This was Hawkins—nothing ever happened in Hawkins. The kid was probably hiding, ran away, got lost, stayed over at a friend's and forgot to call. Joyce had probably found him already.

"Okay. I'm gonna get on that," he said through a mouthful of doughnut. "Just give me a minute." He needed his usual time to let the caffeine and nicotine and sugar go to work on his pounding headache, to lay his head down on the desk and try to remember what it was he was doing here in Hawkins pretending to still be a cop.

Flo was still following him. "Joyce was very upset. She—"

"Flo, Flo, we've discussed this. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation." Flo kept talking, but he overrode her. "Coffee, and contemplation, Flo."

She gave up and let him head back to his office, and he was feeling pretty good about this morning's interactions—until he walked into his office and found Joyce Byers there, hunched over in a chair, looking so small and so frail.

* * *

Joyce got up as soon as Hopper appeared in the doorway, torn between relief that he was finally here and anger that it had taken so long.

"Joyce."

"Hopper! Where the hell have you been?"

"I …" He couldn't tell her. Hell, she probably knew, but he couldn't say it, not to her. "I'm sorry I was late. How can I help you?"

"It's Will. My boy. You met him before, remember? At the movies? Please, Hopper, you have to help me find him. Please."

"You're sure he's not just hiding out somewhere? Stayed at a friend's and forgot to call?" He rounded the corner of the desk, putting down his coffee and doughnut.

"Don't you think I would have called them before I came here?" she snapped.

"Yeah. Maybe." He sank down in his chair. "What do you want me to do?"

"Do?! Hopper, my son is missing. Missing! I want you to help me find out what happened to him."

Sighing, he opened a drawer, pulled out a piece of paper, and loaded it in his typewriter. "MISSING", he wrote on the Incident line while Joyce hovered over his desk, her eyes darting back and forth between his face and the typewriter arm and somewhere off in the distance where her worry lived.

"I have been waiting here—" Joyce checked her watch. "Over an hour, Hopper."

"And I apologize, again," he said, holding his temper in check with an effort. That he was angry with himself for being such a loser made him more angry with her, and she had enough to bear right now without his irrationality on top of it.

"I'm going out of my mind here."

"Look, a boy his age, he's probably just playing hooky."

"No," she broke in, before he could say any more. He didn't know Will, or he'd know better. "Not my Will. He's not like that, he wouldn't do that."

"Well, you never know. I mean, my mom thought I was on the debate team when really I was just screwing Chrissy Carpenter in the back of my dad's Oldsmobile, so …" He knew she remembered that. She had teased him about it later, when he no longer cared about lying to his parents, or about Chrissy Carpenter.

Joyce gave him a withering look. Yeah, she remembered. "Look, he's not like you, Hopper. He's not like me. He's not like … most. He has a couple of friends, but you know kids—they're, they're mean, they make fun of him, they call him names, they, they laugh at him, his clothes—"

"His clothes? What's wrong with his clothes?" Hopper asked.

She didn't want to mention that she had to shop at the Goodwill because it was all she could afford, and that too often the sleeves of the shirts and the legs of the pants were too short because it was so hard to find time to actually go and buy new things. Why did that stuff have to matter, anyway? This was Hawkins, not … Chicago. Or New York. "I don't know! Does that matter?"

"Maybe?"

"Look, he's—he's a sensitive kid. Lonnie—Lonnie used to say he was queer. Called him a fag." She didn't want to mention that, either, but somehow it came out.

"Is he?"

"He's missing! Is what he is."

They were both silent for a moment, and Joyce could see the exact moment Hopper thought he had the answer. Given their history, she was a little surprised it had taken this long.

_Lonnie_, Hopper thought. Of course. Custody dispute, sheer cussedness on Lonnie's part to mess with Joyce's head, an argument with the kid ending in him thinking Dad's house would be better—had to be. "When was the last time you heard from Lonnie?"

She sank into a chair, trying to remember. "Last I heard, he was in Indianapolis. That was about a year ago. But he has nothing to do with this."

Hopper ignored her assertion, reaching for a pen. "Why don't you give me his number."

"No. Hopper. He has nothing to do with this, trust me." The day Lonnie gave a damn about either of their boys was the day Joyce would spread her wings and fly out of Hawkins like a bird.

He raised his voice to be heard over her insistence. "Joyce! Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, kid goes missing, kid is with a parent or relative."

"Well, what about the other time?"

"What?"

"You said, ninety-nine out of a hundred. What about the other time?"

God, she could be so literal. He had forgotten that about her. "Joyce." The word was lost in her flood of them.

"The one. The one!" she repeated, leaning toward him, her big eyes intent on his face.

"Joyce," he said softly. "This is Hawkins. Okay? You want to know the worst thing that's ever happened here, in the four years I've been working here? Do you want to know the worst thing? Is when an owl attacked Eleanor Gillespie's head because it thought that her hair was a nest."

He wasn't wrong. Joyce forced herself to take a breath and remember that this was Hawkins. "Okay, fine. I will call Lonnie. He will talk to me before he talks to—"

"What, a pig?" Hopper muttered. He remembered Lonnie's views on law enforcement. He remembered Lonnie's views on him, for that matter.

"A cop."

They looked at each other across the desk, both agreeing without words that it was far better for Joyce to call Lonnie than Chief Jim Hopper of the Hawkins Police.

Joyce leaned across the desk. "Just find my son, Hop. Find him!"

"I'll do my best."

Mollified, she left the room, not looking forward to talking to Lonnie. Hopper watched her go, wondering exactly what his best was these days, and if it would be good enough.

Hell, he thought. It had to be. Wherever the kid was, there had to be a simple explanation.


	6. For What It's Worth

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"For What It's Worth"

_I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound_

_Everybody look what's goin' down_

\- _Buffalo Springfield_

Hopper had gotten Joyce to give him the names of the kids her son hung out with, and felt damn lucky to find them all still at the school, even though the school day had been over now for a couple of hours. For the first time he felt a stirring of misgiving—if the kid's friends were the kind of nerds who stayed late to play with a ham radio, he probably was, too. Less likely to be hiding out and skipping that way.

Following the principal down the halls to fetch the boys, Hopper remembered Bob the Brain from high school, who had started the whole AV Club thing for nerdy kids just like him. Bob would never have thought of skipping school. Damn it, it had to be Lonnie, didn't it? The last thing Hopper wanted to do was talk to Lonnie after all this time, after what Lonnie had done to Joyce, after abandoning his boys. What kind of father walked out on his kids, for God's sake?

He was getting pretty hot under the collar just thinking of it when they came to the room where the boys were crouched together over the radio. Nerds one and all.

They hauled the kids down to the principal's office and explained the situation. It was obvious from the looks on their faces that they didn't know where the kid was, that this was far from normal behavior, and that they were worried. Remembering the little boy with the big eyes he had met with Joyce at the movies, Hopper wondered if maybe Joyce's kid was the weak one of the bunch, the one the others all protected.

"I'm sorry, you were playing what?"

"D and D. It's a game. You fight monsters," said the serious one, Mike.

"It's stupid." Lucas seemed like the tough one.

"It's not stupid!" interjected the third one, Dustin, the goofy one. "It's an excellent exploration of storytelling and—"

"Yeah, I bet you guys are great at telling stories. How about you tell me about Will. Where does he go after he leaves D and D? Straight home?"

Well, that had been a mistake—they all started talking at once, very fast, overlapping and contradicting each other, which wasn't doing Hopper's headache any favors at all. One of them mentioned a road, but either Hopper didn't catch the name correctly or the kid wasn't in any Hawkins Hopper recognized.

"Okay, okay, okay! One at a time. All right?" He made eye contact with Mike. "You. You said he takes what?"

"Mirkwood."

"Mirkwood," Hopper repeated. He looked at Powell. "Have you ever heard of Mirkwood?"

"I have not. That sounds made up to me."

"No," Lucas said. "It's from _Lord of the Rings._"

"Well, _The Hobbit_," Dustin corrected.

Lucas looked at him like that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard, which saved Hopper from having to look like that. "It doesn't matter!"

Dustin snapped back, "He asked!"

They devolved into an argument, completely forgetting the situation at hand, and Hopper leaned forward in his chair. "Hey. Hey, hey! What'd I just say? One at a damn time." God, kids were exhausting. Give him a biker dude you could threaten to beat up any day over a bunch of kids. He looked at Mike again. "You."

"Mirkwood," Mike confirmed. "It's a real road, it's just the name that's made up. It's where Cornwallis and Curley meet."

Hopper nodded, recognizing the location.

Eagerly, Mike offered, "We can show you, if you want."

"I said that I know it!" The last thing he needed was three other kids going missing. One was enough. Too much.

But Mike wasn't going to be discouraged so easily. "We can help look."

"No."

All three were in now, offering their help, voices overlapping each other again as they tried to convince him.

He raised his voice to be heard above the din. "I said no. After school, you are all to go home, immediately. That means no biking around looking for your friend, no investigating, no nonsense. This isn't some _Lord of the Rings_ book."

"_The Hobbit_," Dustin corrected him, again.

Lucas reached across Mike and smacked Dustin in the arm. "Shut up!"

Hopper was starting to like Lucas.

Dustin punched back, the two of them losing track of what else was going on again. Hopper leaned forward in his seat. Very quietly, he said, "Do I make myself clear?"

Mike, sitting between the other two and completely ignoring them, was looking at the floor, lost in thought. He was plotting an investigation. Hopper would have bet money on it.

He got to his feet, towering over the three boys on the couch. They shrank back. "Do I make myself clear?"

All three nodded, throwing in some "yes, sir"s.

He hoped to hell they meant it … but he wouldn't have, at the same age. He'd have said what the man in authority wanted to hear and then done what he wanted. He'd have to keep an eye out for the three musketeers. Hopefully they wouldn't get in the way too much.

* * *

Having been given strict instructions by Hopper to let him handle things, Joyce felt completely at loose ends. She had to do something; she couldn't just sit there.

She went home, and she and Jonathan went out into the woods. They had looked all over this morning, but in a hurry, frantically. Now they went slower, watching their feet, taking their time.

Joyce tried Castle Byers again, hoping against hope that she would pull the curtain aside and find him there … but the mattress was empty. The whole place was empty.

The two of them called for him until the very sound of their voices was frightening because the woods were so empty and still and anything could have happened to him. They found themselves drawing closer and closer together until at last they were holding each other, both crying and trying not to let the other one see.

* * *

Hopper had come out to 'Mirkwood' with his deputies, and they walked down the road, calling Will's name. He wanted to find the kid, wanted it to be this easy—a fall, a sprained ankle or a broken leg, a frightened and cold kid who would be right as rain after a night in the hospital—but something in him didn't believe it would be.

The uneasiness grew when he found Will's bike, abandoned, and no Will anywhere near. If the kid had been well enough to walk away, he'd have taken the bike. As short on money as Joyce was? There wasn't going to be another bike anytime soon if the kid lost this one. And he'd have known it. Staring into the woods past the abandoned bike, Hopper felt the prickle on the back of his neck that said something was really wrong. Something had happened to this kid, to Joyce's son.

He picked up the bike and took it back to the truck with him. He was going to have to come back out with a proper search party, and that would take time to put together.


	7. Runaway

7

"Runaway"

_I'm a walkin' in the rain_

_Tears are fallin' and I feel a pain _

_A wishin' you were here by me_

_To end this misery_

\- _Del Shannon_

When they didn't find Will, or any trace of him, in the woods, Joyce came back to the house and did what she had been putting off all morning—she called her ex-husband. And, of course, she got some tramp he must be shacked up with. 'Cynthia'. Of course she'd be a Cynthia. She sounded like a Cynthia.

Even with her back to him, Joyce knew how Jonathan was sitting. Closed in on himself, like he could disappear if he tried hard enough. The way he always sat when Lonnie was involved. If she'd had any sense, she would have kicked Lonnie to the curb before he had the chance to hurt Jonathan as deeply as he had. One of many regrets she'd carry with her the rest of her life.

She tried so hard to remain calm while Lonnie's Cynthia brushed her off, so hard. But she was so afraid for Will and so upset at the idea that Lonnie might be involved and so unhappy in general that her voice rose and her hand tightened on the phone without her meaning them to. And then Cynthia hung up on her, and Joyce slammed the phone on the wall and screamed "Bitch!" at it.

"Mom," Jonathan chastised her from the other room.

"What?!"

"You have to stay calm."

Calm. Right. Because she did calm so well where Lonnie was concerned. Joyce dialed the number again, getting an answering machine. On the one hand, she was glad not to have to talk to 'Cynthia' again. On the other hand, answering machines turned her into a stammering fool. She held on to her temper, and her cool, with both hands, long enough to leave what she hoped was a coherent message, and then lost it again on the phone, slamming it onto the hook two or three times while she shouted at it.

That was when Hopper showed up, with Will's bike in tow.

This was a whole different Hopper than she'd talked to this morning. Then, he hadn't taken her seriously. Now, he was worried. And while a worried Hopper meant Joyce had reason to worry, she already had been nearly out of her mind—and a worried Hopper was a sharper Hopper, one who would be able to think things through and find her boy. She was sure of it.

Hopper went through the house, looking for clues, spending time out in the shed in the back. There were shotgun shells spilled on a table, evidence of some kind of violence in some smashed wood up against a wall. Something had happened out here. Maybe the kid had made it home, made it to the shed behind his own house, and then been taken. Stranger things had happened … although not usually in Hawkins.

He had his deputy call back to the office and get a search party together, and he grilled Joyce, as gently as he could, considering how on edge she was, about any detail about Will that might be helpful.

Then they spread out, flashlights in hand, moving slowly through the woods, calling for Will.

Behind him, Hopper heard a voice. "He's a good student."

Turning, he saw the teacher there, the one who had been with Will's friends this afternoon. "What?"

"Will? He's a good student. Great one, actually."

Hopper couldn't help thinking of the little boy with the big eyes—Joyce's eyes—he had met at the movie theater. Joyce had been a good student, too, or could have been, once long ago. It hurt to think she had lost her son, and that pain brought up other pain, old pain, pain that he didn't want to deal with now, or ever again.

The teacher held out his hand. "I don't think we've met. Scott Clark. I teach at Hawkins Middle. Earth and biology."

"I've always had a distaste for science."

"Well, maybe you had a bad teacher," Scott Clark offered.

"Man, Miss Ratliff was a piece o' work."

The teacher chuckled. "Ratliff? You bet. She's still kickin' around, believe it or not."

"Oh, I believe it. Mummies never die, or so they tell me." Before he knew what he was saying, he went on, "Sara, my daughter … Galaxies and universe and whatnot? She really understood all that stuff. I always figured there was enough goin' on down here, I never needed to look elsewhere."

"Your daughter, what grade is she? Maybe I'll get her in my class."

"No, she, uh …" But he couldn't say it. Just this once, he wanted to have a story that ended differently. Before he could stop himself, he found himself lying to a teacher … just like old times. "She lives with her mom in the city. Thanks for comin' out, Teach. We really appreciate it."

And he pushed his way farther into the woods, as much to outrun the ghosts behind him as to find the living child.

Hopper hadn't thought having Joyce or Jonathan out in the search party would be a good idea. Afraid of what they might find, she imagined, and then tried not to imagine it.

Instead, they were set to making up posters with Will's picture on them, posters that could be put up around Hawkins and in the surrounding towns, in case anyone had seen him.

Jonathan had been taking a lot of pictures, more than Joyce had seen in a while, and she felt badly that she hadn't been paying more attention. She leafed through them, impressed as always with his eye for detail, forgetting for a moment that they were looking for one of Will because Will was missing.

"Wow, you took these? They're great," she said to Jonathan. "They really are." Why hadn't she seen these before? How had she lost track and gotten so scattered again? "I know I haven't been there for you," she told him. "I've—I've been working so hard and—I just feel bad, I don't even barely know what's going on with you." She put a hand on his knee. "I'm sorry."

He was silent. He was always so silent, her little boy who was so sensitive, who felt other people's pain so deeply because he was so lost in her own. Damn Lonnie, anyway, and damn herself, for having gotten so caught up in their own problems that they had done this to their son.

"What is it?" she asked him. If you could get the words out of him, it always helped, but it was so hard to do. "Sweetheart?"

"Nothin'." But the quaver in his voice and the sniff that followed the word gave him away.

"Tell me."

He shook his head, saying "no", but Joyce wouldn't let it go. She couldn't, or whatever it was would eat him alive.

"It's just—" At last the words pushed through the barrier in him. "I should've been there for him."

Joyce wanted to cry. Jonathan had always been so responsible around Will, always taken it on himself to stand between Will and anything that might hurt him—especially between Will and Lonnie, to take the burden of their father's anger and disappointment and bitter cutting words on himself so they touched Will as little as possible. Jonathan had taken care of his brother, fed him and driven him places and watched him while she worked. It was, it always had been, too much too ask of a young boy, but he had been there when no one else was and she had leaned on him, far more than she should have. "No!" she protested. "No, no, you can't do that to yourself. This was not your fault. Do you hear me? He—He's close. I know it." She did, too. That was the nameless thing that had kept her going all day, that somehow she felt like Will was just around the corner, that she could almost see him if she held still enough. "I feel it, in my heart. You just, you have to trust me on this, okay?" She put an arm around him, holding him tight, and reached out for a picture that suddenly seemed to be smiling up at her from the pile on the table. "Look at this one." They looked at it and laughed because it was so Will, so much his smile, bright and shy and happy, and they held the picture and each other.

And then the phone rang. Joyce hurried to it, snatching it off the hook, hoping it was Lonnie, or Hopper, or any news at all. "Hello?"

There was nothing there, only breathing, like there was interference on the line.

"Lonnie? Hopper? Who is this?"

The breathing went on. It almost sounded like someone trying not to cry. Then she realized—it wasn't someone. It was Will. It was the sound he made when Lonnie had called, again, to say he wasn't coming, and Will didn't want her to know how badly he was hurting.

With all her heart, Joyce knew that her son was on the other end of the phone line.

"Will? Will!"

The breathing crying sound deepened into full crying. Then there was a crackling on the line, a strange sound, and Joyce was screaming into the phone "What have you done to my boy?!" and then electricity stabbed through the phone lines, jolting against her fingertips, and she dropped the phone.

Jonathan picked it up, calling "Hello? Who is this?" into it, but the phone was dead, burnt out by that strange power surge.

Joyce could hardly breathe, she was so upset, trying to hold back tears long enough to tell Jonathan that she had heard Will on the phone, that it was his breathing and she knew it was him, and they held the phone between them as they clung together and wept in fear and confusion and loss.


	8. Harden My Heart

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Harden My Heart"

_I'm gonna harden my heart_

_I'm gonna swallow my tears_

_I'm gonna turn and leave you here_

_\- Quarterflash_

After the phone call, Joyce and Jonathan drove into town to the police station. With the phone fried, there was no other way to report what had happened. Hopper's secretary assured them she would give him the message, and he would come out as soon as he could, and it was clear that was the best she was going to do. Whether it was the best she _could_ do, Joyce doubted, but she let Jonathan take her home. Despite all of his encouragement, she couldn't settle down. She tried to sleep a little on the couch while waiting for Hopper to come, but how could she when all she could think of was Will out there somewhere, scared, with who knew what kind of terrible things happening to him?

The morning was a relief, because then at least she could do something. The posters. The posters would help, because someone would see Will, because you couldn't keep a little boy locked up. You had to let him out eventually. She clung to that idea, even as Jonathan moved around the kitchen making her breakfast and putting the plate in front of her. She wanted to eat, for his sake, and because she knew she needed to keep up her strength, but she couldn't. The sight, the smell … It was too much. She reached for another cigarette, and then she and Jonathan both jumped at the sharp rap on the door.

Hopper was exhausted, and discouraged. There had been no sign of the boy. Whatever had happened to him, he was just … gone. And the longer he was gone, the worse the results would be. And now he had to deal with Joyce, and tell her he had nothing to tell her, and hear some story about a phone call that sounded unbelievable, when all he really wanted to do was go home, pop a beer and some pills, and try to shut the world away.

"We've been waiting six hours!" she said as soon as the door opened.

He sighed. "I know. I came as soon as I could."

"Six hours."

What did she think he had been doing all this time, sleeping like a baby? "Little bit of trust here, all right? We've been searching all night. Went all the way to Cartersville."

"And?" From the stricken look on her face, she knew what the answer would be.

"Nothing."

She gave a little sob and turned away, her hand over her mouth. Behind her, the older boy, Jonathan, stood, stolid and unresponsive.

Joyce, feeling helpless and frantic, was on the edge of losing her control entirely when Hopper said, quietly, "Flo says you got a phone call?"

Yes. This was something she could do. She could tell Hopper and they could, what, trace the call? That was a thing police did, right? "Yeah." She led him to the phone, watching as he picked up the receiver, scorched and blackened.

"Storm barbecued this pretty good."

"Storm?"

"What else?"

Couldn't he see that something strange had happened here? Why would a storm have fried her phone while she was listening to Will cry? Why not at some other random time? She gestured to the phone, wanting him to look again, to see something—anything. "You're saying that that's not … weird?"

"Yeah, it's weird." He hung the handset back up without another look at it.

Jonathan suggested, "Can we, like, trace who made the call, contact—"

"No, it doesn't work like that."

At another time, Joyce would have felt for Hopper, who was obviously tired and worried. But this was her boy out there, and what did it matter how tired they were if they couldn't find him?

Hopper took a deep breath, leaning against the wall, and looked at her sideways. "Now, uh, you're sure it was Will? Because Flo said you just heard some breathing."

"No!" He had to believe her. He had to. If Hopper didn't believe her, who would? "It was him," she said stubbornly. "It was Will. And—he was scared, and then something just—" She was trying not to cry, but she couldn't help remembering how terrified he had sounded and how much she had wanted to reach through the phone line and pull him back to her.

"Probably just a prank call, or somebody trying to scare you." Hopper could see her unraveling, and he would have liked to have whoever the prankster was in front of him right now so he could make the asshole see the error of his ways. He wished he could reach out, reassure her, at least let her know she wasn't alone. But he knew if he broke, if he let her see how much he hurt for her, she would come to pieces altogether. He had to stay calm for both their sakes.

"Who would do that?" Jonathan asked him.

"These things get on TV, brings out all the crazies, you know, false leads, prank calls …"

"No. Hopper. It was not a prank. It was him."

She was sure of it, because she wanted to believe, and he didn't want to burst her bubble or destroy her hope, but he needed her at full strength, and calm, and in her right mind. "Joyce."

"Come on, how about a little trust here? What, you think I'm—I'm making this up?"

"I'm not saying that you're making it up. All I'm saying is it's an emotional time for you." He remembered some of the crazy things he had thought after Sara—he had hoped against hope that he had dreamed it all, imagined it, that she was still out there somewhere, because he couldn't bear to give her up.

"You think I don't know my own son's breathing?" Joyce demanded. "Wouldn't you know your own daughter's?" She saw the words land, the wince of pain he couldn't hide, and wished she could take the words back.

They stared at each other for a moment, Joyce desperate and apologetic and anguished, and Hopper hurt and angry and trying to stay calm.

He wasn't going to win against the pain, the tears coming to his eyes, remembering the way Sara's breathing had been at the end, how heavy and short her breath had come. Yes, he would know that if he heard it again. He would never forget it. Trying not to hear it as he went about his daily life took everything he had.

Hopper turned away, moving off until he could get himself under control. Joyce was crying behind him, a reminder that she was in the middle of what he had already gone through, the terror and the anguish and the desperate need to do something, and she needed his help, and that allowed him to push through the pain, to stop thinking like a grieving father or an old friend and to start thinking like a cop again.

"You hear from Lonnie yet?" It was the question he needed to ask, but it was also the question that got under Joyce's skin the quickest, especially coming from him, and he felt an admittedly mean-spirited sense of vengeance when her crying stopped and she snapped a "no" back at him.

"It's been long enough," he said, jamming his hat on his head and turning toward the door. "I'm having him checked out."

"Aw, come on!" Joyce shouted after him. "You're wasting your time!"

He ignored her, wishing he had the strength to stay and try to get through to her but knowing he was too close to the edge to try. It was what he had to do, she had to know that—the parent was so often the culprit in these situations, he wouldn't be doing his job if he took Joyce's word for it that Lonnie wasn't involved.

Sure of that as his course, he headed for his car. Behind him, the door closed and Jonathan called out to him.

"Hopper. Let me go."

Rolling his eyes—couldn't they just let him do his job?—Hopper turned to the kid. "I'm sorry?"

"To Lonnie's. You know, if Will's there, it means he ran away. If he sees the cops, he'll think he's in trouble and he'll … hide. He's good at hiding." It was the most Hopper had ever heard the kid talk, and he had to admit he made some sense.

"Yeah? Well, cops are good at finding, okay?" He put his hands on Jonathan's arms, holding him there. "Stay here with your mom." Joyce needed someone to be here, anyone who could keep her calm. He punched the kid on the arm, harder than he'd intended, because Jonathan staggered back a couple of steps. "She needs you."

Climbing into the car, Hopper tore out of the driveway, and the exhaustion and the pain and the tension overwhelmed him. Tears streamed down his face—for Sara, for himself, for Joyce, for her kids, for everyone he had let down by not being able to be what they needed. He wished to God he had picked some other town, any other town, where no distraught woman with brown eyes that should never have to weep again could expect him to save the day for her.


	9. King of Pain

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"King of Pain"

_I have stood here before inside the pouring rain_

_With the world turning circles running 'round my brain_

_I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign_

_But it's my destiny to be the king of pain_

\- _The Police_

Joyce pulled her chair up next to the phone jack on the wall, placing the phone in her lap. She still wasn't sure where the determination to demand two weeks' advance from Donald, who was a notorious tight-fist, had come from, but one minute she had been shaking, filled with fear, and the next minute words were pouring out of her, about Will and about herself. Not hysterical words, but calm, focused, honest words. And Donald had listened, and now here she was with this phone, and a pack of Camels, and two weeks' pay in her pocket. What she would do when it was time to pay back the advance was something she was going to worry about later. For now, she was going to sit here and wait for the phone to ring. Will was out there somewhere—she could practically feel his presence—and he would find a way to call again. Her job was to be here, ready to answer, when he did.

* * *

Hopper stood on the edge of the quarry, looking down into the blue water. If he was a betting man … well, this was where the odds were. Kid's running, he's scared, it's dark, and he loses his balance.

But he couldn't think that way, not and keep his sanity—not and have any chance of helping Joyce keep hers. That phone call, now. The kid's breathing? That wasn't much to go on. It wasn't anything, in fact, except a hysterical mother hearing what she wanted to hear. But she hadn't been wrong, either—in her shoes, he would have thought he knew Sara's breathing, and he would have challenged anyone who told him he didn't. He cringed even now at some of the things he had insisted were true after she died, like telling Diane that he could hear her calling him in the middle of the night, going out into the cold to look for her. So he understood where Joyce was, but he was also afraid to let her go any further, afraid to lose her entirely. While he had shut Powell down when he'd said she had been only a few steps from the edge already, there was some truth to it. Thin as she was, stressed as she was, scared as she was, how much more could she take?

No, he said to himself, stepping back from the quarry. He wasn't going to think of her son being down there until there was literally not a rock left in Hawkins that he hadn't looked under. He owed Joyce that. Hell, he owed Will that.

* * *

Jonathan came tearing home in a mood, slamming the door behind him. Joyce stood up, her heart pounding with hope. She hadn't believed Lonnie was involved, but that would be so simple, it would be so easy for everything to go back to normal …

But a look at Jonathan's face confirmed what she had already known. "He wasn't there."

"No. And the asshole—"

"Jonathan. He's your father."

"He's an asshole!"

Joyce couldn't argue too much with that.

"I'm getting my camera, I'm going to go look for … something. Anything."

"What do you think you're going to find at this hour?"

Jonathan turned and looked at her, at the phone she was clutching to her stomach. "I have to do something, Mom. I'm going crazy thinking about him out there, lost, cold, scared … I have to do something."

"I know."

She didn't say anything else, even the reminders to be careful, to take something to eat, to remember extra film, that she might have called after him in normal circumstances. She just sank back into the chair and held the phone a little closer.

* * *

Finding Benny this afternoon, that had been— Well, there was a reason he wasn't a big city cop anymore, and it wasn't just Sara. Looking down at the body, Hopper had thought about late night burgers and a man who sat across the table and talked to him about fishing, even when he wasn't coherent enough to form words. Benny had been one of the good guys, always there when you needed him, free food, money, whatever anyone needed from him. The idea that he might have killed himself was incomprehensible to Hopper. It had been incomprehensible to Benny's dad, who should have been looking forward to a good decade's worth of fishing trips with his son and now had nothing.

The only thing that had come of it was Benny's dad's report of a kid at the restaurant, a kid with a shaved head who might have been Will Byers. The ID had been doubtful, but it hadn't been a no, which was a hell of a lot more than Hopper had had to go on before.

And the teacher had found some piece of cloth in a storm drain leading into Hawkins National Lab. It didn't seem possible a kid could, or would, crawl in there … but if the kid had been afraid, and it seemed like he must have been, what with the left-behind bike and the half-loaded shotgun at his house. It was a lot of running in the middle of the night, but fear was a good motivator.

"Hey. Jim. I'm still here." The voice was soft and amused. He had been hoping Cynthia would take his mind off things, because God knew he needed to stop thinking for a good long while, but he kept drifting away, lost in thought, trying to work through the tangles and find the answer to who shot Benny and where the kid was and why the hell he was here in Hawkins …

"Sorry," he muttered, and pulled her close, kissing her hard. She responded eagerly, and he lifted her off her feet and half-carried her to the bedroom. That round, and a few beers, and another round later, stopped the thoughts for a while … but sure enough, here he was lying awake again while Cynthia slept the peaceful sleep of someone who wasn't a police officer. Sometimes Hopper thought how nice it would have been to be a truck driver. Or a mailman. Or a liquor store clerk. But who was he kidding? He had never been able to imagine himself as anything but a cop. And usually he was good at it.

Stifling a frustrated growl so as not to wake Cynthia, he got out of bed, pulling on his pants and shirt, and stood by the lake for a long time, drinking beer and listening to the crickets and the frogs and the other nightlife. They had their shit together out there, lucky ducks.

Cynthia woke up eventually and came out, wearing nothing but his corduroy overshirt. "What are you doing? It's freezing."

He turned to her, wanting to put his arms around her, wanting to … wanting, just once, for a woman to be something more than sex to him. Without knowing he was going to, he said, "You ever feel cursed?"

She didn't answer. Didn't know what to answer.

So he explained. "You know, the last person to go missing here was in the summer of '23. Last suicide was the fall of '61."

Cynthia stared up at him, still not sure what to say, but sure she wasn't going to indulge his morbid belief that he had somehow brought all this on just by being here. Eventually she took his hands and got up on tiptoes. "What about the last person to freeze to death?" she asked, smiling a little, hoping for a smile back. But Hopper was fresh out of smiles. When he didn't respond, she let her smile fade. "Hey. Come back inside. Warm me up."

It was a nice offer, but … he couldn't. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again. She was a nice woman—too nice for someone like him—but she didn't understand him, and she probably never would. "Just give me a minute out here," he told her, but what he meant was that he was going to stay out here until she fell asleep and probably until the sun came up and a new day brought the same problems back for him to solve.

And from the look on her face, she knew it, too. He wished he cared more.

But he cared about Benny. He wanted to know who had killed his friend. And he cared about Will, for the kid's own sake and for Joyce's and for Sara's, and he needed to find some trace of the kid. So tomorrow he would be a cop again, a real one, and he would get some answers.


	10. Should I Stay or Should I Go

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

_Should I stay or should I go now?_

_If I stay there will be trouble_

_If I go there will be double_

_So ya gotta let me know_

_Should I stay or should I go?_

\- _The Clash_

The ringing of the phone beneath her fingers woke Joyce from a fitful sleep. She had the handset in her hand before she had fully awakened and remembered why she was sitting here by the phone—but by the time she had said "hello" and heard the faint breathing on the other end of the line, it had all come back to her in its awful clarity.

She couldn't stay seated. Rising to her feet, she cradled the phone in both hands. "Hello! Who is this? Who—?"

The person on the other end drew in a deep, shuddering breath, like a child crying. Like her child crying. Could she ever forget holding Will when he was a baby, a toddler, a small boy, crying in her arms, hearing that shuddering sigh as he tried to get hold of himself? This was Will. She knew it as well as she knew herself.

"Will?"

More breathing.

"Will, it's me." She was on the verge of tears herself, trying to hold it together and be calm for him. "Talk to me. I'm here! Just—just—just tell me where you are, honey. I can hear you. Please!"

"Mom?" His voice sounded as though it was coming from far away.

Joyce gasped at the sound and the lights flickered, as though they were as happy to hear from him as she was. "Will! Yes, it's—it's me. Yes!" She held the phone closer, tighter, as if it were Will she was holding. "Where are you? Where are you? Just talk to me!"

And then lightning arced from the phone, crackling across her fingers, and she screamed and dropped the handset instinctively, jumping back, only then realizing that the phone, her one precious slender connection to her missing boy, was fried. Again. And there had been no storm to blame it on this time.

Joyce knelt, picking up the handset, sobbing incoherently as she pounded on the little plastic reset buttons on the phone's base, holding the handset to her ear as she cried out "No!" over and over again and strained to hear something, anything, on the other line.

All her strength left her. She collapsed next to the chair, against the dead phone, weeping, feeling more helpless than she ever had before.

Damned phone! She was just about to get Will to say where he was! Just about to know where her boy was, to be able to get him. She shrieked aloud, picking up the whole heavy piece of plastic and heaving it away from her, tearing it from the wall, and then sat there weeping and screaming and generally having a tantrum that even Jonathan on his best—worst—day as a toddler couldn't have matched.

As she sat there, shouting out her pain and her anger and her fear, the lights flickered again. And then again. She looked up, then, realizing that only the lights in the hallway were flickering. Two bulbs in the sconce, so unless they were both about to burn out, it couldn't be the bulbs. Was there something wrong with the wiring?

Curiosity got the better of her tantrum, and she got to her feet, investigating, standing beneath the lights as they continued to flicker.

"Jonathan?" she cried weakly, even though she knew he wasn't there. No one was there. No one could be frying her phone or making her lights flicker. As she moved down the hall, they flickered again, and again. And then they stopped, and the second set of lights, farther down the hall, did it, while the first set stayed normal. "What?" she muttered, trying to catch her breath, to stop crying long enough to figure out what was going on.

The lamp on the small table outside her room flickered now. Twice. Then one quick blink.

And from Will's room, the sound of that song he liked, the one Jonathan had introduced him to, blasted out. Joyce shrieked in surprise and fear, plastering herself back against the wall. What, who, was in her house?

Under the closed door, she saw lights flickering inside the room, and the song kept playing.

From fear she moved into anger. If this was someone's idea of a sick joke, if someone was here playing pranks on her while her boy was missing, she was going to make them very sorry. With a determined effort, she pushed herself off the wall, tiptoeing hesitantly across the hall with her hand stretched out, trembling, reaching for the doorknob. Inside Will's room, the song kept playing.

The hallway had never seemed so wide. Finally, her hand was on the knob. She opened the door and stepped in, finding—no one. No one was there. The tape player on Will's desk was playing by itself. It had turned itself on.

How did that happen? Outside of horror movies, this kind of thing just didn't happen.

As she stood there, losing her anger and descending into sadness, the light by the window blinked. It blinked again as she moved toward it. Joyce put both hands on the lampshade, holding the lamp, staring down at the flickering bulb. What did this mean?

"Will, is that you?" The question came from somewhere inside her. Who else would be in his room?

As if in answer to the question, the lightbulb burned more brightly, nearly blinding her as she stared down at it. It was impossible that any lightbulb could shine this brightly.

And then it stopped, blinking off entirely, and the music stopped. And … the wall began to buckle inward.

As Joyce stared at it in horrified fascination, she realized that some … thing was pushing it. A rounded something, pressing against the inside of the wall, stretching the paint in ways Joyce wouldn't have imagined it could stretch. There were ridges, now, and something that looked like fingers. Big fingers. Almost like claws.

She screamed in terror and ran, getting herself out of the house as fast as she could. She made it to the car, finding the extra keys she kept on the visor, turning it on, before she heard the song again, that "should I stay or should I go" song. The lights were blinking in Will's room again.

Joyce stared at them. That was Will. She was absolutely sure of it. Somehow Will was making the lights blink and the music play. But it hadn't been Will coming through the wall. That had been something else, something—something that chased Will away, she thought, remembering how the lights and the music had turned off just before the wall had bulged.

She should get away. She should run.

But if she ran, how would she help Will? She had promised her boys she would be there for them, and God help her, she had failed them more often than she should have. And tonight, she was not going to fail Will, not when he needed her.

Joyce turned the car off and got out, moving slowly back toward the house, wavering between fear and determination, as the music played into the quiet night.

Morning found her still in Will's room. She had been awake all night, unable to tear her eyes away from the lights, her precious connection to her missing boy. She'd brought every lamp in the house into the room, watching them and asking questions when they blinked. Will wasn't able to stay in the lights long enough to tell her anything substantive, though, so it was more that tenuous connection than anything else.

She didn't know when Jonathan had come home last night, and she felt vaguely guilty about that. When they found Will, she would make it up to him.

Hunched over at the end of Will's bed, staring at the lamps, she was waiting for another reappearance when Jonathan opened the door and called to her. She brought him over to the bed, holding onto his hand. "It's Will. It's Will. He's trying to talk to me."

"He's trying to talk to you," Jonathan repeated, trying to wrap his head around the idea. Joyce understood—it was hard to believe.

"Through the lights," she confirmed.

"Mom."

"I know. I know," she told him. She really did know how this would look, and sound, especially coming from her. If she was Karen Wheeler, now, people would still think she'd gone off the deep end, but it wouldn't be quite the same. "Just—just watch." Turning to the lights, she said, "Will, your brother's here. Can you show him what you showed me, baby?"

As they waited, one of the bulbs flickered.

Joyce gasped and pointed at it. "Did you see that?"

"It's the electricity, Mom! It's acting up, it's the same thing that fried the phone!"

"No, it is not the electricity, Jonathan!" Nothing would make the electricity flicker as specifically as what she'd seen. "Something is going on here!" She pointed to the wall where the thing had tried to come through. "Yesterday, the wall—"

"What about the wall?" Jonathan shouted. He was worried about her and scared for his brother, she knew he was, and he was so used to being the voice of logic and reason, he couldn't help but be skeptical now.

"I don't know, I don't know!"

"First the lights, then the wall?"

"I just know that Will is here."

Tears were welling up in Jonathan's eyes, and she hated that he had to be scared for her sanity. "No, Mom."

Where was Will? Had something happened? Joyce looked around the room, getting to her feet as she thought it through. "Maybe if I put more lamps out—"

Jonathan got up, too, cradling her face in his hands. "No, Mom, you don't need more lamps! You need to stop this! Okay? He's just lost. People are looking for him. They're going to find him."

Yes. That made sense. They would find him. Joyce nodded, a wave of weariness crashing over her. She sank back onto the bed, her legs unable to hold her.

Jonathan's hand was on her back, reassuring. He had always been there, so dependable. "Can you do me a favor, Mom? Can you just try and get some sleep? Can you do that for me?"

She nodded. "I promise." He didn't need to have to worry about her on top of everything else.

He went to the kitchen to make breakfast, and she told herself sternly that she would eat it, no matter how little she might want food right now.

Left alone, she looked around at the lights. Jonathan was right, as far as he knew, but she was right, too, as far as she knew. Could she give up on what she knew just because it seemed so unbelievable?

She managed to eat enough to satisfy Jonathan, who gave her a long hug before he left. "Now, you're going to get some sleep?"

"Yes. Are you going to be okay at school?"

He shrugged. "Am I ever?" It was a familiar refrain—Jonathan had always hated school, feeling like it was a waste of time when he could be doing more important things. Then he smiled and cupped her cheek with his hand. "I'll be fine."

"Okay."

Joyce watched him go. Then she turned back into the house, thinking she probably should get some sleep. But what if Will tried to make contact? She should be ready.

In the garage, she found the box of Christmas lights, and started tacking them up around the living room. But there weren't enough, so she left the house, lingering in the doorway long enough to assure Will she would be right back, and drove into town, where she convinced Donald to advance her enough for a new phone and quite a few boxes of Christmas lights.

When she was done, the house looked beautiful. Like fairyland. Lights were draped back and forth across the ceiling, shining brightly. "Okay, Will," she whispered to herself. "Any time now."

But nothing happened, except the startling sound of a knock on the door. Karen Wheeler sure could pick her times, Joyce thought, forcing a smile as she opened the door. She liked Mike's mom, of course she did, but they had nothing in common. Although at least Karen had never made Joyce feel judged, like some of the other moms had over the years. Karen seemed to accept that Joyce's life was different, and not to think much about her beyond that, which was just fine with Joyce.

While the oven preheated for the casserole Karen had brought, Joyce tried to explain the lights as a way to make it feel like Will was coming home, that the house would be ready and decorated for Christmas. But what she really wanted was for Karen to leave so Will would come back. Instinctively, Joyce was sure if anyone would see the lights, it wouldn't be Karen Wheeler. She meant well, but she didn't have the imagination to believe the impossible.

At the end of the visit, Karen's toddler, Holly, had gone off exploring in Will's room. Joyce was convinced Will had been there and Holly had seen the lights, so she rushed Karen out the door, turning around and leaning against it with a sigh.

"I'm here, baby," she told the lights. "Talk to me."

And then it happened. One string of lights lit up, in order, again and again, pointing to a particular place in the wall. Joyce followed them, pushing the bookcase away from the wall and opening the large built-in cupboard, which was where the lights seemed to be pointing.

But there was nothing there, no lights. How could she talk to him?

There had been one bundle of lights left. She grabbed it, plugging it in, and climbed into the cabient with the ball of lights in her lap. "Will," she whispered to it. "Are you here?"

The lights lit up with a bright white glow, and she gasped in delight, cradling them as though they really were Will.

"Okay. Good, good, good. Blink once for yes, twice for no. Can you do that for me, sweetie?"

The lights lit and faded.

She patted them. "Good! Good boy." Being so close to him, feeling him as though he was here with her, was almost more than she could bear, but she had to hold up, for Will. "Baby, I need to know, are you alive?"

One blink. The relief was overwhelming. If he was alive, she could help him. She could do anything.

"Are you safe?"

Two blinks. Which shouldn't have surprised her, but she had wanted so badly to be reassured.

Gripping the lights, she said urgently, "I need to know where to find you, where are you, can you tell me where you are? Can you—" How could he tell her, with one blink for yes and two for no? But he had to tell her, somehow. "Please, baby. I need to find you, tell me what to do. Please."

The lights were silent, Will as uncertain how to communicate what was important as she was.

For a moment, the fear and frustration overwhelmed her. Then she shook the lights a little. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

In the shed, she found a can of paint, and on the wall she painted the alphabet, hanging lights so that each bulb matched up with a letter. Standing back, she was proud of what she'd done. One way or another, she was going to communicate with her son.

"Okay," she said aloud to the room, sure that Will could hear her. "Okay, baby, talk to me. Talk to me, where are you?"

The letters lit up, one at a time. R. I. G. H. T. H. E. R. E.

"Right here. Right here? I don't know what that means. I—I need you to tell me what to do. What should I do? How do I get to you? How do I find you? What should I do?"

The letters lit up again, the message crystal clear. R.U.N.

Behind her, the wall bulged, the same shape as before, and the lights went crazy. Joyce stared at it in horror, frozen to the spot. What was it? Was this what kept Will from being safe? A claw of some kind ripped through the wallpaper, a long white skeletal arm covered in some kind of glistening skin reached out, and a whole creature followed it, humanoid but not. A monster. A real-life movie monster, here in Hawkins, Indiana.

The reality of what she was seeing broke Joyce out of her trance, and she did what Will had told her to do. She ran.

Outside the house, Jonathan was just pulling up. In her terror, Joyce ran in front of his car. He got out, coming to her, and they held each other, even as approaching lights and sirens lit up the night.


	11. Words

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Words"

_You look at me as if you're in a daze_

_It's like the feeling at the end of the page_

_When you realize you don't know what you just read_

\- _Missing Persons_

It had been such a good day, Hopper thought. Such a good day, in a long damned streak of bad ones. Talking his way into that facility, catching them in the lie about the tapes, finding out all the back story on the microfiche … he'd felt like a real cop again. Like Detective Jim Hopper, two steps ahead at all times. It had been awkward seeing Marissa again at the library, but it was always going to be awkward seeing her again.

He'd been prepared to go to Joyce and tell her progress was being made, that he had reason to believe they were moving forward, and to deal with whatever emotions that news brought up.

But now—now he was driving away from the quarry, where they'd pulled that poor kid's body out of the water. He'd had a bad feeling about the place from the start, the chill in his gut he always got when he was in the most obvious, and therefore most likely, place. Nothing strange, nothing sinister, just a poor damned kid who got scared and lost his footing and ruined his mother's life.

The very last place he wanted to go right now was to Joyce's house, to watch her break when he told her that her son was dead. But he didn't have any other choice. It had to be him. He couldn't bear for her to hear the news from anyone else.

She met him first, before he could get the words out. "Hop, there was something in my house. It came out of the wall. It—it was a thing, a monster. You have to go in there, you have to get it out."

He drew in a breath to tell her anyway, but he couldn't. Not yet. "All right. Let me look." He gestured to Powell, and they went in, guns drawn, neither of them surprised to find that there was nothing there.

The house was—he didn't understand what was going on in the house. There were Christmas lights strung everywhere, all over the ceilings, and a string on the wall with the alphabet painted under them. What had she been doing to herself? He was willing to bet she hadn't slept since Will had gone missing, and had only eaten when someone forced food on her. She couldn't keep on like this. He wanted to hold her the way he had in high school, all those years ago, to take care of her. But he couldn't do that. He was the Chief of Police, and instead of making things better, he had to make them so much worse.

He brought her inside, with Jonathan. Joyce went immediately to the wall, putting her hand on the smoothness of the wallpaper, frowning at it.

"Joyce. Joyce!"

"What?" She came toward him, but turned her head so she could stare at the wall, puzzled and worried about it far more than she was about what he had come to tell her. And he couldn't put it off anymore.

"Joyce. We found— We found something."

She nodded vaguely, but wasn't listening.

"We found Will, Joyce. In the quarry."

Behind him, he heard a sharp gasp from Jonathan.

Joyce didn't look at either of them. "No." She said it as though she was distracted, as though she hadn't heard him.

Gently, Hopper kept trying to reach her. "We think … well, our working theory right now is that he crashed the bike, made his way to the quarry, and accidentally fell in."

Joyce was staring at the smooth, unblemished wallpaper. He wasn't sure she could even hear him, and he was terrified that they were going to lose her to this, that she was going to go under with the weight of her grief.

"The earth must have given way," he went on. She moved her head a little, but then continued staring at the wall. "Joyce." He said it again when she didn't respond. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"No." She looked at him, clearly shaken, but not by his news. "Whoever you found, is not my boy. It's not Will."

He had seen this before, this denial in the face of the facts. He had pretended Sara was just in the other room for … far longer than he should have.

"Joyce."

"No. You—you don't understand. I talked to him. A half hour ago." She went to the wall and opened up a cupboard, lifting a bundle of Christmas lights out of it. "He was—he was here. He was talking, with these."

"Talking?" Hopper echoed. Well, that explained the lights. It hurt to see her like this—she'd always been so smart, even if she had never believed it about herself. But this kind of thing had always been a possibility, hovering just out of sight.

"Uh-huh. One blink for yes, two for no." She put the bundle back in the cupboard, going to the alphabet wall. "And—and then I made this so, so he could talk to me. Because—" She pointed at the cupboard. "He was hiding. From—that thing."

"The thing that came out of the wall, the thing that chased you."

She didn't catch that he was humoring her, or that he didn't believe her. "Yeah."

Jonathan came toward her, holding his arms out to her. "Mom, come on, please, please."

"No. It—he's—it's after him! He's in danger." She let go of Jonathan and turned to Hopper, holding his arms. "We have to find him! We—"

"What exactly was this thing? Some kind of animal, you said?"

"No, it was this—it was almost human, but it wasn't. It had these long arms and it didn't have a face." She was animated in her description, her hands moving as she tried to get the picture across, and there was no doubt in Hopper's mind that to Joyce, this thing was very real, as if she had actually seen it.

Jonathan turned away, leaving the room entirely. Hopper felt for the kid. It was hard enough to lose your brother, but now it looked like he might lose his mom, too.

"It didn't have a face," Hopper repeated, gently. He took her by the arms, moving her toward the table in front of the couch, coaxing her to sit. "Joyce." She was talking incoherently now, starting to weep, and Jim knelt in front of her. "Listen. Listen to me." He hadn't spoken of this before, not to anyone. Not even really to Diane, although she'd known what was happening. But Joyce needed to hear it, before she lost her other son, too. "After Sara, I saw her, too. And I heard her." He still could, if he tried hard enough. Or, late at night, if he didn't try hard enough not to. "I didn't know what was real. And then I figured out that it was in my mind, and I had to pack all that away, otherwise I was going to fall down a hole that I couldn't get out of."

He thought maybe he'd gotten through to her, as her body stopped trembling and she got control of the tears, but she shook her head, saying, "You're talking about grief. This is different."

"I'm just sayin'."

"I know what you're saying, Hop. And I swear to you, I know what I saw. And—I'm not crazy—"

Hopper kept his voice low and calm and soft. "I'm not saying that you're crazy."

She wasn't having any of that. "No. You are. And I—I understand. But … God …" She was losing the fight with the tears again, her hands trembling in his. "I need you to believe me. Please."

He couldn't. What she was saying— He had seen her son's body with his own eyes, and here she was talking about him being in the lights. Much as he wanted to be on her side, to be the person who believed her, he just couldn't. "Listen. I think you should go down to the morgue tomorrow and see it for yourself and get the answers that you need." She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no, either, which was better than he'd thought that suggestion would go. He held her hands a little tighter. "But tonight, I want you to try to get some sleep, if you can."

Joyce looked at him like he was the one who was crazy, closing her eyes and shaking her head like she couldn't believe what she was hearing—or like she could believe it, and was incredibly disappointed. He wished with all his heart that he didn't have to be the one to bring her back to reality—but better him than Jonathan.

With a final squeeze of her hand, Hopper got to his feet. He went outside and got in his car and turned it on, ready to drive away, then turned it off again. How could he leave her there like this? Couldn't he go back, and pretend to believe her long enough to get her to sleep, to hold her and tuck her in and make sure she was okay, at least for tonight?

But he couldn't do that. She wouldn't want him to, anyway—nothing he had said had convinced her. Tomorrow, in the daylight, maybe she would see then. He leaned back in the truck, pulling his hat down over his eyes. When she woke up, he would be here, and when she went to the morgue, he would be there. It was the best he could do.

* * *

Left alone, Joyce went back to the wall. She couldn't understand how every trace of that creature could have disappeared, how the wall could be so smooth when she had seen the paper tear as that thing pushed its way through. If only she had stayed, and … and killed it, somehow. Then Will would be safe.

Jonathan had retreated to his room, and she went to his door, ready to knock, to ask for his help or try to offer hers, and thought better of it. He needed time alone. He always had, since he was little. He worked through things on his own best. She could talk to him in the morning.

Briefly, she considered doing as Hopper had asked and getting some sleep—but what if Will came back? If that thing came back? She needed to be ready.

From the shed, she got the axe, bringing it back inside with her. Then she sat down on the couch, the axe in her hands, ready to save her boy if there was the slightest chance to do it.


	12. I Go Crazy

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"I Go Crazy"

_I see your face and it just ain't true_

_No, it just ain't true_

\- _Paul Davis_

Joyce woke on the couch, the axe on her lap, sure that she had heard Will's voice. She looked around, dazed, blinked, and must have dozed off again, because Will was suddenly there in front of her, shouting "Mom!" She gasped, blinked again, and Will became Jonathan, who was bending over her, trying to shake her awake.

"What? What time is it?"

"It's almost eight. We have to go."

Still half-asleep, she couldn't remember why. "Where?" she asked him. "Where?"

"To see Will. To the morgue."

"Will isn't at the morgue," she said automatically.

"Mom, please don't start that again. I need you to— I need you. Please."

Jonathan so rarely asked for anything, and almost never said he needed anything. For him, she would make an effort.

"Let me get my teeth brushed. Is there any coffee?"

He looked relieved. "I'm making some."

"Thank you."

"Should I take some to the Chief?"

"The Chief?"

"Yeah, he's asleep out in his truck."

"He is?" Joyce was touched. That was the Hopper she remembered, who didn't say much but was just quietly there when you least expected him to be. "Yeah, take him some coffee. Tell him—tell him I said thanks."

* * *

Hopper followed them to the morgue. He hadn't said much to either Joyce or Jonathan this morning, feeling kind of foolish to be found asleep in his truck outside their house. He was glad neither of them had felt the need to make a big deal out of it.

At the morgue, both of them were ushered into the back, but Hopper was not asked to join them. Which was fine by him. He'd only seen the kid alive once, and he'd seen him dead once, and that was enough. More than enough. He wished he could be there for Joyce when she had to face the truth, but he'd be right outside, where he could rush in if he was needed.

He sat there for what felt like forever, turning his hat around in his hands, waiting. And waiting. At last he asked Patty, the receptionist, what was taking so long.

She gave the long-suffering sigh of the only competent person in an office full of chaos. "Well, everything's been a bit chaotic around here without Gary."

"Without Gary?" Hopper echoed. "Where's Gary?" Gary hadn't missed a day of work in all the time Hopper had been on the job here. Why would he be off today, of all days?

Patty frowned at him. "I thought you know. Those men from State, they sent Gary home last night."

"So who did the autopsy?"

"Someone from State."

Why the hell would someone from State come to Hawkins to autopsy a little kid who fell in a quarry? That didn't make any sense at all. On the whole, Hopper was relieved to have something to puzzle over, but he was sure in the end it would be nothing. A paperwork issue, some overzealous bureaucrat who liked little kids' autopsies done with extra red tape.

* * *

Back in the bowels of the morgue, Joyce and Jonathan stood in front of a window, looking into a room where a form draped in a blue sheet lay on a stretcher. Jonathan was holding himself together, but barely. Joyce … wasn't sure what to think. This must look like Will, or Hopper would never have told her that it was. And if it wasn't Will, and it looked like him, then why? How? But it couldn't be Will, because he was at home, somehow. Right here, like he had told her.

Still, the anticipation of the moment that sheet would be pulled back and she would have to see the face of a dead child who looked like her boy was making it hard to breathe.

Jonathan looked at her, then at the morgue attendant, and gave him the smallest of nods. The attendant pulled back the sheet. Next to her, Jonathan trembled when the face was revealed, the face that looked remarkably like Will's. Jonathan bolted off somewhere to be sick, but Joyce stayed where she was. How could this boy look so much like Will and not be Will?

To the attendant, she said, "He has a birthmark on his right arm. Can you show that to me, please?"

The attendant moved the sheet. The mark was there. It was … Will's. Just as she had seen it thousands of times. Just as she had traced her fingers over when he was a baby.

How could she be standing here looking at this body, this body that looked like Will in every detail, and be certain that it wasn't him? Because she was certain. She was absolutely sure. If that made her crazy, so be it, but she wasn't going to let Will down by ignoring what she felt.

* * *

Jonathan hadn't been able to bear going back in, so he'd come out and was now sitting next to Hopper, both waiting. The kid was holding himself together pretty well, but you could tell it had hit him hard. Living out there, the three of them, big age difference between the two boys, Joyce being who she was—Jonathan probably felt responsible. Hopper felt for him, poor kid.

"How's your mom doing?" he asked.

The kid had to think that one over. Either he wasn't sure what to say or he wasn't sure how she was doing—or he was sure and didn't want to say it out loud. "I don't know," he muttered at last.

Behind the desk a phone rang.

"How long's that stuff been goin' on, with the lights and Will and the thing in the wall?"

Jonathan shook his head. "Since the first phone call, I guess."

Classic denial. Poor Joyce.

"You know, she's had anxiety problems, in the past," Jonathan said. "But this? … I don't know."

Hopper sensed that it was rare for the kid to offer so much, and to a virtual stranger, at that. He must be really worried about her. Hell, Hopper was really worried about her. He was on the verge of getting up and going back there to see if she had collapsed or if she was still spouting delusional fairytales.

Next to him, Jonathan sighed heavily. "I'm worried it could be … I don't know." He took a deep breath, getting himself together, and made eye contact with Hopper for the first time. "She'll be okay. We'll be okay."

Hopper couldn't tell which one of them the kid was trying to convince.

"My mom … she's tough."

The kid didn't know the half of it. "Yeah, she is." Hopper reached out and put a hand on Jonathan's shoulder. "Hey. She is." This time, he didn't know which of them he was trying to convince.

Jonathan gave him a little smile, though, so Hopper figured at least one of them felt better. Actually, come to think of it, he did, too. Maybe Joyce was talking to the lights, but she would come through it. He believed that. He would help her as much as he can. For the first time, he thought maybe it was a good thing he had come to Hawkins rather than going somewhere, anywhere, else.

They were still smiling at each other, Hopper squeezing Jonathan's shoulder, when they heard a voice yelling, "Ma'am! Ma'am." The door swung violently open, and Joyce emerged, followed closely by the morgue technician, who was brandishing a clipboard and demanding that she sign it.

Joyce turned to him, yelling, "I don't know what you think that thing is in there, but that is not my son."

Hopper was on his feet, looking concerned. "Joyce. Wait a second."

"No!" She wasn't staying in here one more minute. She pushed through the doors, heedless of Jonathan calling her name and completely ignoring the technician and his damned clipboard.

Jonathan hurried out after Joyce, leaving Hopper standing there. He turned to the technician. "What was that all about?"

"She—she needs to sign the forms! But she insists that isn't her son, and that she's not going to sign. We can't release the body without a parent's signature, so now what do we do?" the technician demanded, staring at Hopper as though he had the answers.

"Wait, all right? She just lost her child. Have some compassion."

The technician took a breath, getting his temper under control with obvious effort. "All right. She has twenty-four hours."

"I'll tell her."

"Good luck." With that, the technician headed back into the lab. Hopper hoped he liked spending time around the dead, because he certainly didn't seem equipped to handle the living.

* * *

Joyce had taken off from the morgue, walking down the street, needing to get away from there and from Hopper and from Jonathan and get somewhere that she could clear her head.

Jonathan followed her in the car, demanding that she get in. He didn't understand. She wasn't sure she understood well enough to explain it to him. She waved him off. "I need to think. Just go on home."

"Mom, will you just get in, please?"

She waved him off, hurrying down the sidewalk. Jonathan pulled the car to a stop and came after her, catching up just after she had crossed the street. He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around.

"Stop!"

"Just go home, Jonathan!"

"No. This is not an okay time for you to shut down."

"Shut down?" Was that what he thought this was? Did he not see there was more to this than met the eye?

"We have to deal with this, Mom! We have to deal with the funeral!"

She hated to have to argue with Jonathan. He didn't deserve it. But she was damned well not going to have anything more to do with that thing they'd shown her. "The funeral?" she asked him in disbelief. "For—for who? For that thing back there?"

"Let me get this straight. Will. That's not his body, because he's in the lights, right? And there's a monster in the wall. Do you even hear yourself?"

Did he imagine she didn't? Did he think she thought this was all perfectly normal? "I know it sounds crazy. _I _sound crazy."

"Yeah!"

"Do you think I don't know that? It _is_ crazy! But I heard him, Jonathan, he talked to me! Will is, is calling to me, and he's out there, and he's alone, and he's scared, and, and I don't care if anyone believes me! I'm not going to stop looking for him until I find him and bring him home!"

Jonathan's eyes had filled with tears. She hated to hurt him—but she couldn't abandon Will, not even for him. Her son was out there somewhere, not back in that room, and she would fight anyone who told her otherwise, even Jonathan, her rock.

"I am going to bring him home!" she shouted at him, one more time, for emphasis. And then she turned and walked away, because she needed to think now, more than ever.

"Yeah, well, while you're talking to the lights, the rest of us are having a funeral for Will! I'm not letting him stay in that freezer another day!"

Under any other circumstances, Joyce would have been proud of him—he was doing exactly what she was doing, the very best he could for Will. Today, he was just another obstacle in her way as she tried to figure out how to get to Will.


	13. One Way or Another

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

_One way or another, I'm gonna find ya_

_ \- Blondie_

Joyce went straight home to wait, calling for Will. In order to boost the strength of her own voice, wearied now from days of crying, her throat sore and dry, she brought Will's boombox into the living room, playing his song for him in order to call him to her.

"Come on," she said, tense and impatient, pacing back and forth, unable to stop moving. "Come on!"

The song kept playing, and nothing happened, and Joyce completely lost her cool, forgetting this was her son she was waiting for, forgetting that he was hiding from some creature trying to get to him. "TALK TO ME!" she screamed. "I know you're here!"

She could feel him here—why wasn't he speaking? She tugged on the lights in various places, pacing the floor underneath them as they stayed dark and silent.

Slowly another sound intruded itself over the blare of the music, over the pounding of Joyce's heart. _Thud. Thud. Thud._ She turned the music off, listening for where the sound was coming from.

Behind her. The same part of the wall that monster had come through. The monster who was chasing her boy, who may have been the one to take her boy. Who was putting her through this nightmare.

She stood there in front of the wall. This time, if the monster came through, she wasn't running.

Then there was another sound, faint but real—not through a phone, not through the lights. Will was calling her. From somewhere on the other side of the wall, Will was calling her.

Joyce gasped, for a moment unable to believe her ears. "Will?" She put her hands on the wall, as if somehow she could touch him through it.

"Mom?" he called again. "Mom!"

"Will!" He was outside. He must be. She ran for the door, calling his name … but there was nothing outside. No Will, no nothing. Just … the chairs and the porch swing. Everything normal. Joyce looked around helplessly, confused and frustrated and panicked, before running back into the house.

The thumping was still coming from the wall.

"Will?!"

"Mom!" He was louder now, more strident.

"Will, I'm here!" Joyce ran her hands up and down the wall. What could she do? If he was there, how could she get to him? "I'm here!" she said again. Reaching up, she grabbed the wallpaper in both hands where it was starting to come loose at the seams and pulled, ripping a big piece of it away.

What she found was … well, if she could have stopped to consider it, she would have vomited. It was a big pink mass, like … meat, almost, and it was glistening. But there was no time to think about what it was, because on the other side of it she could see him. Her boy. Will. He was alive … somewhere behind that pink stuff.

"Oh! Oh, God! Will! Baby …" She was weeping now, unable to stop the tears from coming, patting the wall as if he could feel her through it.

On the other side of the pink wall, he looked over his shoulder at a sudden sound, and she could see the terror in his face.

"Mom, it's coming!"

"Tell me where you are! I'll protect you!"

"It's like home, but it's so dark. It's so dark and empty! And it's cold! Oh, Mom!" he shrieked, his fear rising.

Joyce was as scared and as confused as he was, but in this moment she knew what she had to do. She leaned closer to the wall and spoke intently. "Listen to me. I swear I'm gonna get to you, okay? But right now, I need you to hide."

"Mom!"

Something was happening to the wall. In the urgency of her message to Will, Joyce had barely noticed it, but the real wall was beginning to close in again, wallpaper and everything, as if that pink wall had never existed. There wasn't much time.

"Listen. No, no, listen, listen. I—I will find you," she promised.

Will's hands were pressed against the wall on the other side, and sending him away from her was the hardest thing she thought she had ever done—but she couldn't protect him if she couldn't get to him, and that thing was coming for him.

"Listen, I will find you. But you have to run now. Run!"

And he was gone. The hole in the wall closed, leaving only the torn paper to prove anything had ever happened.

Joyce turned and saw the axe, lifting it and chopping into the wall with all her force. If there was a way through, she was going to open it up.

But there was nothing. The only thing she saw as pieces of wall fell away under her repeated blows was the outside, the peaceful fall day a mockery of the unreal torment she was living in.

Will was gone. She couldn't feel him any longer—wherever he had run, if he had hidden, if he had been caught, she didn't know. The sense of him still here in the house that had sustained her all this time had disappeared as though it had never been at all. And wherever he was, or had been, she had no way to get to him now.

Feeling lost herself, utterly defeated, she stood there staring through the hole in her wall and wept in despair.


	14. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?"

_You know we've got a mystery to solve,_

_So Scooby-Doo be ready for your act._

_Don't hold back!_

\- _Scooby-Doo, Where Are You_

Something didn't sit right with Hopper about the autopsy. A local kid dies and the local coroner is sent home by some people from the state? That wasn't normal. And given Joyce's insistence … well, maybe she was crazy, driven out of her mind with grief. But a parent's feeling for their child was something that shouldn't be ignored. All of Hopper's experience as a cop told him that, as well as his own all-too-brief fatherhood.

He had Flo call Gary to come into the station, and sat him down. "You feeling all right, Gary?"

"Never better."

"So you're just … taking the day off? I've never known you to take a day off."

"Not my idea, Hopper."

"You didn't call these guys?"

"No, sir. They just showed up with the body. Troopers."

"Where did they come from? Did they tell you why they were out looking around in a quarry in the middle of the night?"

"I guess one of them was doing some kind of rounds? They didn't explain much." He shook his head. "Sure is a shame. Poor Joyce, she must be beside herself."

"It's a tough blow." Hopper didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to have to think about the pain Joyce would be in once the truth hit her—he had altogether too much experience with that kind of pain. "So, Gary, tell me about these troopers who brought in Will."

"There was about six of them, I'd say."

"All staties."

"Yes, sir. Never seen that many troopers come with a body before."

"They told you that they were going to take care of the autopsy, huh?"

"Yeah. Claimed jurisdiction, kicked me out." Gary shook his head. "Well, it all seemed a bit over the top to me, considering …"

"Considering what?"

"Considering this was Will Byers and not … John F. Kennedy."

Hopper sighed. Gary had a point. Why would the state have bothered? Public health issue? But if so, why wouldn't they have talked to him? He got up, moving closer to the TV. The sound was off, but the station was tuned to an interview with the statie who had found Will's body. Why a statie? Why the quarry? It didn't make sense.

Belatedly, he remembered Gary was still there. "Thanks for coming by, Gary."

"Sure thing."

As Gary got up to go, Hopper turned up the sound on the TV.

" … know that the troopers are on duty, and it should be safe, because we think this is just an isolated incident," the statie was saying.

"State Trooper David O'Bannon, thank you so much for your time."

The interview was over, but Hopper's questions were only just beginning. He decided to track down this trooper himself, which took some doing … but Hopper had been a cop for a long time. He knew what cops did when they had found bodies, when they wanted to drown their sorrows. It was just a question of finding the right bar.

Eventually he did, taking a seat next to the trooper and ordering a whiskey and lighting up a cigarette. They sat there watching the game and drinking until O'Bannon was about done with his beer and Hopper's glass was down to the dregs. He pushed it across the bar and wiggled his fingers at the bartender. "Another, please." He pretended he had just noticed O'Bannon's beer getting low. "And another for my, uh, friend here."

O'Bannon looked at him in surprise. "Oh, thanks, man. 'Preciate it."

"Yeah, that's all right. I'm, uh, I'm celebratin'. My daughter. She won the spelling bee today." God, where had that come from? Sara would never win any damned spelling bees, although she could have. She'd been so goddamned smart. He leaned into it, finding an obscure pleasure in being, for just a moment, a man whose daughter was alive to win spelling bees.

Seeming unimpressed, O'Bannon said, "Is that right." He turned his attention back to the game.

"Yeah, that's right. 'Odontalgia.' That was the word. You know what it means?" O'Bannon shook his head. He didn't particularly care what it meant, but that wasn't going to stop Hopper from telling him. "It's a fancy name for a toothache." Hopper chuckled to himself. "Yeah, she's smart. She's real smart." Will Byers was smart; Hopper bet he could spell odontalgia. "I don't know where she gets it from, I've been trying to figure that out for years."

"Your daughter, she got a name?" O'Bannon asked.

Coming in the middle of his assumption of this proud father persona, the question threw Hopper off. "What?"

"Your daughter. What's her name?"

He hadn't wanted to give away that part, had wanted to keep it for himself. Reluctantly, he said, "Sara. Her name's Sara."

O'Bannon reached for the full beer bottle the bartender had put in front of him, and lifted it. "To Sara."

Hopper toasted him with his own refilled glass, and they drank. The hook was set. Giving it a moment, he looked over at his companion. "I recognize you. You famous or somethin'?"

"You might've seen me on TV. I, uh, I found that Byers boy."

Wasn't sitting well with him, either. O'Bannon's eyes were on the TV, and he looked fidgety, nervous. Not sad or proud or even matter-of-fact. Yeah, something wasn't right here.

"Were you on that case, or what?"

"No, I just saw him on patrol, you know. Dumb luck."

"So that quarry, that's, uh … that's state-run, where they found the boy, huh," Hopper said slowly. He tapped the ash off his cigarette, carefully not looking at O'Bannon.

"Yeah."

There was silence for a moment, while Hopper could feel how badly O'Bannon wanted him to drop the subject. "Well, that's funny. 'Cause, you know, I know for a fact that it's run by the Sattler Company." He did look over now, waiting to see what the reaction would be. "Frank Sattler, decent guy, still got a couple of operational quarries up in Rohan."

"That right."

"Yeah. That's right." Hopper's tone was flat, now; direct. "So why you lying to me, man?"

O'Bannon looked at him, angry enough to try to deflect Hopper confrontationally. "What's your problem, bud?"

"I don't have a problem. I'm just a concerned citizen."

"Yeah? Well, stick your nose someplace else. The kid is dead. End of story." Getting up, O'Bannon threw some money on the bar and grabbed his jacket. "Thanks for ruining the game, dick."

And he walked off.

Hopper was struck by what he'd said. 'The kid is dead.' Had there been any doubt? Hopper had asked about the quarry, not about the kid. To offer up a defensive assertion that the kid was dead meant that … maybe the kid wasn't dead. How could that be, if there was a body? Had Joyce been right all along with her 'Will's in the lights' theory?

He couldn't get into whether Will was in the lights right now, but he could follow up on this lead. He finished his drink—no use wasting good whiskey—and, tossing some money of his own on the bar, he followed O'Bannon out the door.

Catching the trooper on his way to the parking lot behind the bar, Hopper grabbed him by the arm. "Tell me about the quarry. How did you know to go there?"

"Go to hell."

So Hopper slugged him. "The quarry! Who sent you there?"

O'Bannon just glared at him, so Hopper hit him some more, backing him up against the wall. It felt damn good to finally be able to do something, to work out some of his frustrations. Hopper was careful not to let it go too far—he did need information out of this asshole, after all. When O'Bannon was sagging against the wall, his breath coming short, Hopper hauled him up and held him still with a hand on his jaw.

"Okay, let's try this one more time. Who told you to be out there? What were you doing out there?"

The trooper shook his head just slightly. Couldn't talk, wouldn't talk, was scared to talk—it was all the same to Hopper. He raised his fist again, making it clear he would strike again and again until he got an answer.

O'Bannon groaned a "no" at him, having had enough, apparently. "He—he just told me to call it in, and not let anybody get too close."

"Get close to what?"

"The body."

Hopper froze. Joyce had been right. Whoever was in the morgue, it wasn't her son. "Who do you work for? The NSA? Hawkins Lab?"

O'Bannon was staring at something over his shoulder, fear written on his face. Hopper turned to look and saw a long black car parked at the edge of the lot behind him.

"Who is that?"

"You're gonna get us both killed."

"Who is that?" Leaving O'Bannon, Hopper started toward the car. "Hey! Hey!" He pulled his gun, running toward the car, which pulled away before he could see the driver in any kind of detail. He considered shooting at the car, but that would make a lot of noise out here in public, and he didn't know nearly enough yet to take the risk.

When the car was gone, he looked around and saw that O'Bannon had fled, as well.

That was probably okay—he thought he'd gotten as much from the trooper as he was going to get. No, now he had to go see the body, and find out why no one was supposed to come close to him, and how they had made whoever it was look so similar to Will that it had fooled his own brother.

Another trooper, this one looking very young, was on duty outside the morgue, engrossed in a book. _Cujo_. Hopper approved.

"Hey," he said, smiling as he approached the young trooper. "I love that book, that's a ... nasty mutt.

The trooper was on his feet immediately, book down, hand on his gun, standing in front of the door. "You can't be back here."

It was nice to be tall. Hopper towered over this kid by several inches, and he made them felt, even as he kept smiling. "Yeah, I just got off the line with O'Bannon, he said that he needs to see you at the station, it's some emergency …"

The kid wasn't biting. "What the hell you talking about? I don't work with O'Bannon."

"Did I say O'Bannon? I meant—" He wasn't going to find another name. The hell with it, anyway. He'd at least tried to play this straight. "Okay." And he hauled off and punched the kid.

Two strikes and the young trooper was down for the count. Hopper felt bad about the headache he would have later.

Grabbing the keys off the trooper's belt, he let himself into the morgue, looking around all the while to make sure no one was watching. One trooper, that was all they'd left here? If he'd been trying to hide something, he'd have left more.

The morgue was silent, dark, and a little bit spooky. Hopper usually wasn't troubled by fears of this nature—his own demons were more than enough nastiness lurking in the dark—but this was … different. His heart was pounding. What was he about to find?

Will's body, or whoever's body was standing in for it, was in the second drawer down. Hopper pulled out the drawer and took the sheet off the face. Damn, but it sure looked like the kid he remembered meeting at the movie theater.

He walked away from it, thinking of dead children and grieving parents and anguish and heartache and loss. But that was his story. Maybe it didn't have to be Joyce's. Getting a grip on himself, he returned to the body, pulling the sheet back the rest of the way off the torso. Immediately, he could see a problem: The chest was smooth. There had been no autopsy. Was this why they had sent Gary away, so no one would know they hadn't cut into the boy?

Hopper put his hand on the chest, and then took it away, frowning at it. The skin felt strange. Spongy? Not quite firm enough? Something was definitely not right.

Damn it, he was going to have to cut into this child's body. Could he really do this? If this wasn't Joyce's son, it was someone's. Shouldn't he have more respect? But something was off about it, and he wasn't going to know what it was if he didn't at least look.

Opening up his pocket knife, he started to make the cut, but pulled the knife away before it made contact with the skin. This was awful. He couldn't help seeing Sara there, Sara lying alone and cold in the dark.

But this wasn't Sara. And all signs pointed to it not being Will, either. He had to know.

This time, he made the cut, deep and sure. The skin was surprisingly tough to cut through, and it felt as though there was nothing inside the body to cut into.

He pulled the sides of the skin away from the opening he'd made, plunging his hand into the cavity before he could think better of it—and came away with a handful of fluff. This wasn't a kid at all, not a human. This was a doll, filled with the same kind of white stuffing a plush animal was filled with.

His first reaction was pure anger. How dare anyone put someone through what Joyce and Jonathan were going through, faking the death of a child? What kind of monstrous asshole did that?

His second thought was Joyce. She needed to know.

Hopper wanted to run out of the morgue to her and tell her what he had found, tell her she had been right all along, and this wasn't Will … but what good would that do? She knew she was right. She knew this wasn't Will. She had said so, in the face of skepticism and despite what she knew it sounded like to others. What she didn't know, and what this wouldn't tell her, was where Will was—and there was only one place Hopper could think of where he could get that answer for her.

He had to go to the lab.


	15. Crazy

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Crazy"

_Crazy, for thinking that my love could hold you_

_I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying_

\- _Patsy Cline_

Joyce was sitting in the wreckage of her living room when car lights shining through the window woke her from the near-stupor she had fallen into, exhausted and riddled with guilt for having had to send Will away instead of being able to go in there—wherever there was—and fight that monster for him.

Hopper? she thought, squinting blearily in the light. Jonathan? Surely it was time for Jonathan to be coming home by now.

She pushed herself up off the floor and went outside in time to see a snazzy black car pull up. Joyce had never seen it before, but she recognized it anyway—it was Lonnie's. He always managed to have a cool black car, no matter how dire the rest of his circumstances might have been. His wife and children might be down to their last box of macaroni and cheese, but the car got taken care of.

The last thought flickered through her mind without emotion. Whatever Lonnie had done before, he was here now. He was Will's father, and Will was gone, and Lonnie had come.

"Hey. Babe." He came toward her now, concern written in his face. "What the hell happened?"

Without thinking Joyce reached out her arms and Lonnie held her. Being in his arms felt so familiar and safe. Lonnie always knew what to do. He would know what to do now. She could relax.

And with that thought, she fell apart, weeping against his shoulder as she had countless times before when things got to be too much. And as he always did, he kissed her hair and held her and promised her that everything would be all right, that he would take care of everything.

Too tired to do anything more, Joyce believed him, letting him lead her inside the house.

* * *

Hopper pulled up to the lab, near the woods, what the kids had called, what was it, Mirkwood?, and got out of the truck, bringing the big wire cutters with him. He cut the fence, slipping in with more noise than he would have liked. Might have to think about cutting down on the beer.

As he moved through the grounds, he was glad for his training—after his visit to their security room, he remembered most of the places their cameras covered, and could see some of the others, so he arrived at a side door undetected. Then he waited until two of the scientists came out so he could grab the door before it closed behind them, slipping in without need of a card to open the door.

It looked like an office. A bare, cold, uninviting office you would never want to work in, sure, but an office nonetheless. Normal.

Hopper moved quickly but cautiously down the halls. It was late enough at night that most people had left for the day, but there were still a few out and about who he had to avoid. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for until he found it: a hallway blocked off with plastic and marked with big yellow hazmat warning stickers.

Hazmat. Well, hell.

Nothing for it but to go in, and worry about the consequences later. Would anyone really notice if he grew a second head, anyway? He unzipped the plastic and stepped through the opening.

This hallway was much more clinical. No more wood paneling. This was all in white tile, with harsher, more industrial lighting.

It ended in a turn and a pair of doors that were locked against him. Only a card was getting him through these doors. Damn it.

Behind him, he heard the familiar click of a gun being cocked, and a security guard's voice saying "Hands up. Hands. Up."

He obediently put his hands up, turning around. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." Two of them, one the managerial type in a suit who had shown him around earlier. So he hadn't avoided all the cameras as well as he'd thought. Great.

Managerial type made that point, with a smirk that Hopper wanted to wipe right off his face.

But he couldn't, because he was busy trying to think of a plausible lie. "Look, Dr. Brenner asked for me specifically. Okay? How else do you think I got in here?"

Manager took one hand off his gun, reaching for the walkie at his belt. The uniform behind him looked confused. His gun was still up, but he was waiting for the suit to tell him what to do. "What's your name again?"

"It's Jim Hopper. Chief Jim Hopper," he said, as though they were idiots for not knowing. Honestly, they really were. You want to run something shady in a town, you get to know the people who might stumble on your operations so you know how to deal with them. Stepping forward, he positioned himself, and while the suit was talking into the walkie, Hopper decked him. He grabbed the gun while the suit was falling and had it pointed at the uniform before he could react. Pushing the uniform against the wall, Hopper grabbed his gun out of his outstretched hand. The walkie was burbling to itself on the floor, the suit's message having gotten through, at least partially, but Hopper was distracted by the card clipped to the uniform's shirt pocket. "Hey. You might if I borrow this thing?" He ripped it off the shirt. Still holding the gun on the uniform, he ran the card and stepped through the doors.

As soon as the door closed behind him, he shot the card reader on the inside, hoping that would buy him some time before they could get through after him.

* * *

Lonnie walked Joyce into the house with an arm around her shoulders. "Tell me everything. Tell me about our boy. I came as soon as I heard they found— What the hell?" He was looking around at the living room, the furniture tumbled here and there, the lights across the ceiling,

"He was here, Lonnie. He was here. The lights were blinking, one for yes and two for no, and then some … thing came through the wall at me." She gestured vaguely at the broken wall. "And then Will was in the wall, it was pink and I could see him, and the thing was coming and I—I told him to run. And now he's gone." Her face crumpled, but she was too tired and drained to cry anymore.

Frowning in confusion, Lonnie asked, "That was how he ended up in the quarry?"

"No. He was never in the quarry."

"But the body?"

"That's not Will. It's—they faked it, somehow, I don't know."

Lonnie was silent, looking at her, and she braced for his skepticism. But instead, he led her to the couch. "Come on, why don't you sit down. You look exhausted." He picked up a blanket and draped it over her shoulders. "And you must be freezing. All right, you stay there and I'll get something to warm us up."

She wasn't surprised when he unerringly found the last bottle of vodka in the house and brought it over, pouring some into two glasses.

"Here. Drink this. It'll calm your nerves. And help you think straight, yeah?"

"I don't know what to do."

"I know. I know." He sounded like he really did know. Maybe this thing with Will had reminded him that he had a family, sons who needed him.

"This whole time, I … I could—I could feel him. He was, he was so close, he was right there." She gestured at the wall, remembering Will's small pale scared face through that pink wall. "I knew he was alive. Our hands—our hands were … almost touching. Now it's like I … Now it's like I can't feel him anymore." Like she had sent her little boy away from the only place he felt safe, and lost and alone out there that thing had caught him. She couldn't bear to think of it; she couldn't stop thinking of it.

Lonnie didn't respond, and she glanced at him, seeing that same long-suffering expression on his face that she had seen too much of in her life.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like, how everybody's looking at me, like I'm out of my damn mind."

"Hey." He took her hand, his fingers warm on hers. "You're not going to like this, but I think you need to seriously consider the possibility that all this—it's in your head."

Joyce groaned. Of course he would say that.

"Remember your Aunt Darlene?"

"No. No. This is not that."

"When something like this happens, your mind makes up stuff. For you to cope, you know? I mean, Jesus, there's a funeral tomorrow for our little boy and you're saying his body's fake. He's in the wall. I mean, how do you explain that?"

Joyce didn't know how to explain it. What if he was right? What if Hopper had been right? What if she wanted Will, her boy, her artist, to be alive so badly she had made this all up?

"How do you explain that?" Lonnie continued. His voice was soft, reasonable.

He was trying to help. And maybe he was right. Maybe Will had never been in the lights, or in the wall. Maybe he was just a kid who had run off because he heard something in the woods and tripped and fell into a quarry, and now he was dead, and there was nothing strange about it. Strange was exhausting, and scary. Maybe grief would be … less scary.

"It doesn't make sense. It doesn't. At least go talk to a shrink or … what about Pastor Charles, or someone—"

That cut through the fog of misery closing around her. "They can't help." Joyce should know. She'd gone to Pastor Charles before, and come home with an earful of a wife's duty to her husband.

"Joyce, you just told me that Will is gone. What else is there to do?"

He was gone. Will was gone. Either she had lost him today when she sent him away, or earlier when he never came home, but there was no more Will. She had to live with that, even if she didn't know how to. She swallowed down the glass of vodka and poured herself another, and she and Lonnie sat there drinking as they had done so many nights before.

* * *

Beyond the locked doors, everything was dark and silent. No one worked here now, that much was clear. Hopper pulled the flashlight out of his pocket, shining it ahead of him, calling Will's name as he made his way through the shadowy halls.

One room held what must have been a child's bed, still neatly made up with blanket and stuffed animal sitting on it. A childish drawing was taped to the wall. Had Will been kept here? He must have been.

Feeling an urgency now, Hopper rushed through the halls, calling Will's name again and again.

He came to a pair of double doors, hearing some kind of alarm on the other side. Or possibly behind him, it was hard to say. He punched a button next to the doors, hoping it would open them.

Behind him, voices. They were catching up. They couldn't catch up until he had found Will, or at least what had happened to him. What Hopper would do after that, he couldn't have said, but that was a problem for later. For now, Will.

Behind him, the doors opened. It was an elevator. He ducked in as soon as the door was open far enough to do so, and punched the button on the wall. Not a lot of choice for floors.

Security came around the corner, shouting for him to stop, as the elevator doors closed.

When they opened again, he thought he was in a nightmare. The place was pitch black and dead silent, and something was floating in the air. Like snowflakes. Or ash.

The elevator doors closing behind him felt like they were cutting him off from everything. He could only imagine how Will must have felt if he had been down here. If he still was down here.

The floating things in the air grew thicker as he went farther, and it was getting harder to breathe.

And then he found it. Whatever it was. Whatever he had been looking for, no question this was it.

"What the hell," Hopper whispered, moving toward it.

The walls of the room were covered in slimy black vines of some kind, and in front of him more vines laced over an opening in the wall … an opening that looked like something out of a horror movie.

Jesus Christ. If this was real, if he was really standing here, then maybe Will had been talking to Joyce through the lights. Anything was possible.

Hopper moved closer, reaching out to touch the slimy ropes, like a really big, gross spiderweb, that covered the hole.

Behind him, something moved, and he whirled around, reaching for his gun, moving back through the room.

A person in a white hazmat suit was coming toward him, and Hopper backed away. Then a gloved hand was over his mouth, a sharp pain stabbed him in the neck … and blackness.


	16. Dust in the Wind

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Dust in the Wind"

_I close my eyes_

_Only for a moment, and the moment's gone_

_All my dreams_

_Pass before my eyes, a curiosity_

\- _Kansas_

Lonnie and Joyce were still sitting together on the couch, reminiscing about old times, the vodka bottle nearly empty, when Jonathan came in.

"Hey, kid."

Jonathan glared at his father. "What's going on?"

"Your dad's gonna stay here tonight," Joyce said, hastening to add, "on the couch."

"I'm here as long as you need me, okay?"

Lonnie sounded reassuring to Joyce, but Jonathan wasn't hearing it the same way. When it came to Lonnie, he never had.

"How you holdin' up?" Lonnie asked, but Jonathan was crossing the living room to lift the tarp that covered the hole in the wall, and he ignored his father's question.

"What happened?"

"Don't worry about that," Lonnie told him.

Continuing to ignore his father, Jonathan stepped toward Joyce. "Mom. That thing you saw, before— Did it come back?"

Joyce wasn't sure what to answer. It was easier now to believe she had imagined it all, that she had chopped a hole in the wall for no reason.

"Jonathan," Lonnie said sharply. "That's enough."

Finally, Jonathan looked at his father, the two of them staring at each other in one of those silent battles of wills that was so exhausting. Joyce could feel her eyes closing. Maybe she could sleep now, maybe … if they would just be quiet for a minute.

Jonathan and Lonnie stepped into Jonathan's room. She didn't want to listen, so she didn't.

She was barely aware of Lonnie helping her to her feet and leading her to the bedroom, or of Jonathan coming in later to touch her hair and make sure she was covered. All this time that Will had been gone, she had avoided sleep, wanting to be awake if he needed her, but now she reached for it desperately, for the blackness that could make her forget all of this had ever happened.

In the morning, nothing felt any better. Even the sleep hadn't helped, so dark and dreamless. Joyce felt like she was moving through cotton, everything dulled and far away. She let Jonathan make her breakfast and dutifully ate it, she let Lonnie pick out her clothes and she put them on, but none of it felt like her. None of it felt real.

Dimly in the back of her mind she thought that Will, yesterday, in the lights and in the wall, that had felt real. This felt like a nightmare.

But she pushed the thought away. She had made that up. That kind of thing was for books, and movies, not real life.

Sitting on Will's bed, she wanted to stay here, where everything was familiar and seemed like him. She didn't want to go to some funeral preached by a man she barely knew. That wouldn't seem like Will. But she took Lonnie's hand anyway, and she went.

She greeted everyone as they arrived. Most seemed to assume she needed space, and made their murmurs brief before moving away to wait for the start of the ceremony.

The cold pinched the edges of the fog, and she could hear bits and pieces of the smarmy claptrap Pastor Charles was spouting. That wasn't Will. That didn't have anything to do with Will. _Talk about Will!_, she wanted to shout at him. But she didn't want him to talk about Will, because this wasn't Will.

Except that it was, she reminded herself. It had to be. Little boys didn't disappear into the walls and the lights.

When the pastor's droning finally stopped, she got up and followed Jonathan and Lonnie to the grave, dropping a rose on top of the casket. This still felt less real, less like her boy, than yesterday. When would this start to feel like her life? she wondered wearily.

Standing there, she heard the Wheelers come up and hug Lonnie, shaking his hand, expressing their condolences. Since when were the Wheelers such great friends with Lonnie? Joyce wondered. Ted had never come over to drink a beer when Lonnie lived there; Karen had never invited the Byerses to one of her fondue parties.

But that didn't matter, either. What mattered was trying to wrap her head around the idea that this was her Will being buried here.

She would never make him another peanut butter sandwich.

She would never buy him another box of crayons.

She would never hear another tale of Will the Wise.

She would never make him laugh again.

She would never do anything Will's mother had done again.

With that thought, she finally mustered the strength to move away from the gravesite.

* * *

Hopper awoke with a jolt, his heart pounding. He was covered in sweat, lying here on the couch—his couch. In his own place.

What the hell?

Then it all came flooding back. The fake body, Hawkins Lab, that freaky hole in the wall … everything.

Next to him, the table looked like he had had the party to end all parties. Empty beer cans and pills were strewn across it. Well, they knew their shit, he'd give them that. Some mornings, his table really did look like that.

He grabbed his gun off the table and ran for the door, but there was no one out there. Nothing.

Inside, he looked carefully at his neck in the mirror, remembering the sharp, stabbing pain. Yeah, there was a red mark where they had tranked him. So they'd tranked him, they'd brought him home, they'd probably tossed the place looking to see what he knew, and … they'd bugged it. Of course they had.

Frantically he started searching for the bug. Every lightbulb, wall socket, picture frame, cabinet, utensil, battery holder, under the table, in the phone. He broke the phone apart to look inside the plastic casing, ripped open his couch cushions, took apart his stereo—and finally he found it. Inside the overhead light, the most amateur place he could think of. He hadn't even looked there first because he didn't think anyone was that obvious anymore.

He dropped the bug on a table and crushed it with an ashtray, making a good job of it. Taking pleasure in it.

A pounding on the door nearly made him jump out of his socks. He grabbed for the gun—and nearly shot poor Phil in the face.

"Jesus, Chief, you all right?" Powell asked him.

"What are you doing here?"

"We tried callin', but, uh …"

"Yeah, the phone's dead." And it was going to stay that way.

"So, Bev Mooney came in this morning all upset, said that Dale and Henry went hunting yesterday, and they didn't come back home."

Powell added, "She thought they were on another binger, but—she's not so sure now."

"I think this whole Will Byers thing has everybody on edge."

Dale and Henry? Missing? Same as Will? If there was a big hole into ... somewhere at the bottom of Hawkins Lab, who knew what might have happened. "Where was this?"

"It was at the station."

"No, where did Henry and Dale go hunting?" Some days, he missed working with real cops.

"Oh. Uh … out near Curley."

"Mirkwood," Hopper muttered.

"What?"

He ignored the way they were both looking at him, as though maybe he wasn't quite all there. If this was how Joyce had felt, he owed her an apology. Hell, he owed her one anyway. "Okay. You go back to the station, I'll take care of this. All right?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Leave it."

"Oh," Phil added. "They found Barbara's car."

"What?"

"Barbara Holland's car?" Powell reminded him.

He remembered now. Red-headed girl, gone missing after a party. Missing. Another one.

Powell added, "Seems she ran away after all. Staties found it late last night at a bus station."

Staties found it? Then she was … wherever Will was. Wherever that hole led. Had to be. What the hell was going on here?

Phil said, "Funny, right. They keep doin' our job for us."

"Yeah. That's funny," he said. Funny was a word for it, all right.

He shut the door in their faces. There was work to do.

* * *

Joyce suffered through the potluck, quietly in her seat sipping truly terrible coffee while Lonnie buttered up all the attendees. Very few people spoke to her beyond a strained smile and a careful pronouncing of her name, but Lonnie was all over the room, talking to everyone, his face just the right kind of sad.

In the light of day, she remembered what he was like, all the manipulations, all the fake charm. What was he doing now? He didn't even live here—why was he talking to all of these people like they were still neighbors?

Probably it was nothing, but in the face of having to think about Will, either in the wall or in the ground, thinking about Lonnie was familiar, easy, and annoyed Joyce just enough to start blowing away the fog that had surrounded her all day. Maybe she might even start feeling like herself again if she could just focus on how annoyed she was at him long enough.


	17. I Can See Clearly Now

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"I Can See Clearly Now"

_I can see clearly now the rain is gone_

_I can see all obstacles in my way_

_Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind_

\- _Nash_

It was a relief to get home and change out of the too-fancy funeral clothes, to feel normal again. To feel like Will's mom, and not like whatever unnatural creature had attended that funeral.

Joyce felt enough better that she was able to lie down and think about taking a nap, letting herself pretend everything was normal long enough to drift away.

But she was awakened all too soon by a banging from the living room. Wandering in there still half asleep, she found Lonnie, still in his dress shirt from the funeral, nailing boards over the hole in the wall. Well, apparently he felt right at home, then. This was new, Joyce thought. If he had spent more time at home fixing things up years ago, none of them might be in this situation now.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"What does it look like I'm doing? You want to freeze to death all winter?"

She didn't have anything to say to that. Not that she had entirely wanted to freeze, and she would have fixed the wall eventually, but his attitude seemed completely unnecessary.

Something else seemed off about the room. She looked around vaguely for a second before she realized: He had taken down all the lights. They lay neatly coiled in piles.

"I told you not to take these down!"

"They were in the way, babe. How long are you going to keep those up? I mean, really."

Joyce just glared at him and started putting the lights back up. She may not know exactly what had happened to Will, or where he had gone when she told him to run, or how it was that they had buried a body that looked exactly like him, but she knew that as long as there was any chance at all that her boy might need her again, those lights were staying right where they were.

She had forgotten what it was like to have someone else around who thought they were in charge … and she didn't entirely like it. This had been her house too long for her to want someone else to come in and start messing with her things.

They worked for a moment in silence before Lonnie remarked, "You know, it's a shame what they've done to this family."

"What?"

"The Sattler Company. I went to the quarry on the way over here. I just wanted to look around, you know? Couldn't believe it. Just couldn't believe it." He positioned another nail in the board and started hammering. "No warning signs, no fence, no nothing. Ought to be held accountable, if you ask me."

Since she had never believed that body in the quarry was Will's, Joyce had never given that much thought. She supposed he was right, if some child had fallen in, it might have been better if there were signs.

"So, what, you want to talk to them, get them to put up signs and a fence, keep this from happening to some other kid?"

Lonnie glanced at her, placing another board. "Something like that, yeah."

"Huh." Joyce kept hanging the lights, glad Lonnie hadn't pulled out all the nails. That sounded surprisingly nice of him. She'd never known him to worry about other people. Maybe he was turning over a new leaf, strange as that sounded. But … if Will really was—gone, then maybe that had shaken Lonnie up, made him think about what was really important. Stranger things had happened.

Lonnie finished boarding up the hole, stepping back to look at what he had done. "If I say it myself, I do nice work."

"Yeah, that's great. Thanks."

He looked at her, watching her standing on top of the coffee table to attach the lights to the ceiling. "It's a start." Clearing his throat, he said, "I think I'll go take a shower."

"Sounds good. You need towels?"

"I know where they are."

Joyce rolled her eyes. Maybe he did know where the towels were, but he didn't have to make it sound so … intimate. What did he think was going on here? Did he think she'd be so grateful for his help that she'd fall right back into old habits, bad habits? Maybe she would have, once, but not now. Not anymore.

Waiting until she heard the splashing of the water that indicated he had stepped into the shower, she took his bag, which he had left out on the chair, and opened it, digging around. There was always something with Lonnie. It was never straightforward. It was always something he wanted, she reminded herself.

And then, in his wallet, she found it. A folded up paper—an ad for lawyers. "Accidental injury or death," it said. "Let us fight for you."

How could she have been so stupid as to think he was really here for Will? God, would she never be done falling for Lonnie's crap? Of course he was here to see what he could get out of this. It sickened her. His own son. Her boy. And all Lonnie could think about was money.

It took all she could do not to storm in there and pull him out of the shower—but she didn't want either one of them to be naked for this conversation.

She waited until he came out, all satisfied with himself. He'd put on cologne, for God's sake. He really did think he could just walk right in here and everything would fall into his lap, didn't he?

Wordlessly, she held out the paper.

"I can explain."

"Can you? Can you explain why you had a lawyer's ad in your wallet? Is that why you came?"

"I came for you! I came for Will."

"You didn't come for us!" He could make her mad so fast. She wanted to punch his lights out. "You were here for the money!" She shoved the paper at his chest.

"No!"

"Just the money! Admit it," Joyce demanded. "You weren't here 'cause of Will, you never cared about him! You never did!" How could she have believed he would suddenly care now, when he never had before?

"Jesus, Joyce, it was his funeral today. Do we have to do this right now?"

"I can't believe I fell for this."

"I'm here to help, Joyce."

"To help?"

"We could use that money for good."

"Oh, like, you mean, to pay off your debts?" She knew he had some. He always had some.

"To pay for Jonathan to go to school."

"Oh!" How dare he. How dare he come in here and pretend to be a concerned father wanting to provide for his family. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Lie to me!"

"I'm not lying to you!"

"Yeah? Well, where does he want to go? Huh?" Let him answer that one, if he was such a caring father.

"What?"

"Where does Jonathan want to go to college?"

"We get that money, anywhere he damn well pleases!"

"NYU, Lonnie!" she screamed at him. "He's wanted to go to NYU since he was six years old!"

"So then he goes to NYU!" he screamed back.

He had never known. Not that, or anything else about the boys that mattered, because what his kids wanted, or needed, had never mattered to him. Joyce swore she would never fall for this again, not for so much as a second. "Get out. Get out!"

Lonnie changed tactics, suddenly calm and charming with that little cocky smile that worked for him so often. "You need me here, Joyce."

"Oh, brother, I have not needed you for a long time." She shoved him back away from her.

"Oh, no? Look what happened." This time, his smile was the one that said he held the winning card. She hated this smile, and what he was implying. Like she was the bad parent, when he had run off and left them entirely.

"Don't you dare. At least I was here!"

"Come on, Joyce! Just look around this place. All your Christmas lights. What the hell am I supposed to think, you're such a great mom? You're a mess."

"Maybe I am a mess," she told him. "Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm out of my mind. But God help me, I will keep these lights up until the day I die if I think there's a chance that Will's still out there." She picked up his bag and shoved it at him. "Now, get out! Get out of my house!"

"You won't get a penny of that money."

"Yeah, well, I hope you don't get it, either. Because that wasn't Will."

"You're a nutcase," he told her as she pushed him out the door.

"I'd rather be a nutcase than abandon my children."

He scoffed at that one, but he went, getting into his car and driving away. Joyce stood there watching him, shaking, until she was sure he was gone, then she went back inside to finish hanging the lights.

* * *

In the ruins of his trailer, Hopper wrestled with belief. That Hawkins Lab had covered up whatever had really happened to Will he could buy. But if that was true, then … what Joyce was saying was true, too, or it could be. Will was in the lights, or the wall. How? Hopper didn't know. This required—faith. Understanding. Imagination. And he had buried all of those with Sara. He didn't know how to get them back, not even now when another child's life hung in the balance.

Lost, scared, not sure if he could do the job that lay ahead of him, he did what he always did when he didn't know what else to do. He reconnected the phone and dialed a familiar number, listening to the ring.

It surprised him when Diane picked up, her clear, crisp voice coming to him through the phone lines. "Hey," he said.

Her voice changed, softening, but also becoming wary. "Jim?"

"Yeah."

Diane sighed in exasperation. "Why are you calling me here? I told you not to call me."

"Yeah, I know, I know. I just wanted to—just wanted to hear your voice." Once upon a time, talking to her at the end of every night had grounded him, made him a better cop, reminded him that everyone he dealt with all day wanted just this—to go home to their family. He had forgotten that recently. He continued, haltingly, not sure just how to say what he wanted to say, "And, uh, I just wanted to say that, um, even after everything that happened, I don't—I don't regret any of it. And those seven years, they were … everything to me."

"Have you been drinking?" she asked, in the tone of a woman who had heard it all, too many times before.

"No," he told her. "No."

In the background, he heard a baby crying. Diane's baby. That had never stopped hurting, that she had been able to move on and start over. He heard her shushing the baby, softly, in the same loving tones she had used with Sara. For once, he wasn't angry with her, or bitter. Just … envious. Just thinking that maybe it might be nice to move on, if only he knew how.

"You know what, actually I have been drinking," he said at last, as the baby kept crying and Diane kept soothing it. It was easier this way. "I'm sorry."

"Jim. I can't …"

"Just take care of yourself. Okay? Say hi to Bill for me." As he put the receiver down, he heard her ask, "Are you sure?"

And for once, he was. That life was gone. It was over and done with. He had a new life now, and it needed him to be on top of his game.


	18. Twist of Fate

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Twist of Fate"

_This is a new beginning_

_I'm back in the land of the living_

\- _Olivia Newton-John_

Joyce almost had all the lights back up when someone knocked at the door. Banged on it, more like, obnoxiously on the glass, so she couldn't possibly miss it. It could only be Lonnie, back with some new way to pitch his greed, and when was he ever going to learn that when she said no, when she said get out, she meant it?

"Go away, Lonnie."

He didn't. He banged on the door some more. Furious, she threw the lights she was untangling on the floor and marched to the door. "Seriously! I am gonna murd—" The words died on her lips when she opened the door to find Jim Hopper standing there, holding a finger to his lips and a sign that said "DON'T SAY ANYTHING". "What?" she mouthed, taking the sign as he pushed his way into the house.

Hopper looked around, seeing all the lights hanging from the ceilings. Damn it, he had forgotten those. "Oh, Jesus," he muttered. This was going to take them all night. He reached up and unscrewed the nearest bulb, looking at the socket carefully. Then he pointed to Joyce, and to the bulb, and to the rest of the lights.

Her eyes widened, and she mouthed, "Seriously?"

He nodded, and kept unscrewing light bulbs. Joyce grabbed a crayon that lay on a table nearby and followed him, scribbling on the other side of the paper. She held it up to him. "What are we looking for?"

Taking the crayon, he scrawled "Bugs" on the paper.

"Bugs?" she mouthed. Then she shrugged, climbed on top of the coffee table, and started unscrewing light bulbs.

At last Hopper took out the last bulb. He was breathing hard—it had been a damned long day, and he hadn't stopped for so much as a cigarette in hours. But it looked like they were clear. There was no sign anyone had bugged Joyce's house. "Okay," he said, sinking into the nearest chair. "Should be okay. I mean … I can't guarantee it, but it should be okay."

"What the hell's going on, Hopper?"

"They bugged my place."

"What?"

"They bugged my place," he repeated. "They put a microphone in the light." He sighed, sinking further back into his chair, feeling a strange sort of safety for the first time all day, here with her. "It's because I'm onto them and they know it. I don't know …"

"Who?" Joyce broke in.

"I thought they might be watching you, too. I don't know, the CIA, the NSA, Department of Energy, I don't know."

"You've got to explain this to me, 'cause I am not—"

"I went to the morgue last night, Joyce."

She froze, terrified of what he might say. All day she had managed to push thoughts of that body away, of what it might mean, and here was Hopper with this crazy story saying he'd been to the morgue. "What?"

"It wasn't him."

For a second, she wasn't sure she had heard him right. She had known it, in her heart, but to hear Hopper confirm it was a whole different thing. "What?" she repeated, needing to hear it again.

"Will's body. It was a fake."

Joyce sank down in front of him, shaking with relief—not just to hear Hopper confirm that body hadn't been Will's, but to know she wasn't alone in this any longer. Hopper knew. And Hopper got things done. She thought back to high school, all the times she had gone to him for help and he had been there.

Hopper leaned forward in the chair, putting a hand on hers, holding her gaze steadily so she would hear him say it, clearly and distinctly. "You were right. This whole time, you were right."

She couldn't help the smile that came to her face, or the tears that came to her eyes. She clung to his hand like a lifeline.

"Joyce," he said gently. "I'm going to help you. We're going to find Will. I promise. But you have to tell me again, everything, from the beginning."

"From when Will was lost?"

"From the phone call."

"I …"

"But first—do you have any coffee?"

She looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since he came to the house. "Have you eaten anything?"

"Not today."

"All right, let's get you something to eat." She tugged on his hand, pulling him up out of the chair and leading him to the kitchen. The refrigerator was pretty bare. "Turkey okay?"

"Anything."

"Okay." She pulled out the turkey and some wilted lettuce and the mustard.

"The phone call, Joyce."

"Right." She thought back as she assembled the sandwich, wanting to get this right. "The first phone call, there was just breathing. Scared breathing. And I called to him. 'Will?', I said, 'Is that you?', and the breathing changed. It was him, Hopper, I know it was him."

"I know, Joyce," he said patiently as she dug into a cupboard, finding a half-full bag of potato chips and putting it down in front of him next to the sandwich.

"So then I bought a new phone, and I waited, and the second time, I heard him. He said, 'Mom'. And then the phone shorted out again and turned black, like the first one had. Only this time I noticed the lights were blinking. But only in one place." She got out the coffee and the filters. "Then they blinked again, farther down the hall. So I followed it. And then the music came on in Will's room, this song he really likes, and the light got bright, so bright. I didn't know light bulbs could be that bright. And then the wall bulged, like something was coming out of it."

"The creature."

"But I didn't see him that time. I ran. But when I was about to drive away, the music came back on. Will stayed with me there in his room most of that night, blinking the lights on and off, but I couldn't figure out how to talk to him. So I bought all these lights on credit—Donald wasn't happy about it, but he did it—and hung them up, and he led me through the lights to the cupboard in the wall."

Hopper ate his sandwich and tried to follow the story, which got more convoluted as it went, as she consciously tried not to be defensive about it, to believe that he believed her.

"And I asked him if he was alive and he said yes, and I asked him if he was safe and he said no." Her face crumpled, and she held on to the sink. "But I couldn't ask him how to get to him," she went on, gathering herself together, "so I put up the lights with the letters, and I asked him where he was, and he said 'right here' and I asked him what he wanted me to do and he said 'run'. That's when the creature came out of the wall, and I ran. I got the axe later, but I forgot I had it. If I had only had the axe when the wall turned pink … God, I sound like a fucking maniac."

"Yeah, you do, but I believe you," Hopper reassured her.

Joyce nodded, sniffing a bit as she reached for the coffee cups. "I heard banging on the wall, and I ripped the wallpaper and the wall was pink, like … skin, or muscle, or something, and I could see Will through it, but I didn't remember the axe was there, so I couldn't get to him, and that thing was coming, and I told him to run and hide, and then …"

"That was when I came."

"Yes. And I couldn't feel him here any more. Before I could feel him. I knew he was here. Now …"

"We'll find him, Joyce. I promise." He reached for her hand as she put the coffee cups down on the table. "I promise."

"Thank you, Hop." They looked at each other for a second, then she squeezed his hand and let it go, reaching into the refrigerator for the milk. "Now, tell me. Why did you go to the morgue? I thought you thought I was crazy."

"I did," he admitted. "But then … they sent state troopers to take care of the body."

"Who's they?"

He shrugged. "Them. I don't know. But they sent Gary home, Gary's our coroner, and I thought why the hell would they do that for some kid from Hawkins, you know?" He glanced at her, hoping she wouldn't take offense, but she was nodding as she lit her cigarette. "So I went and talked to the cop who found the body, and he was … weird. Not right at all. And he said his orders were to keep everyone away from the body. Which meant something was wrong with the body. So I went to the morgue, and they hadn't done an autopsy at all. Nothing. And I—I cut into it, and it was a doll. Stuffed with stuffing, you know, that cotton stuff?"

"A doll? Not even a real person? I knew it!" Joyce leaned forward, her eyes bright.

"I know you did."

"So then what did you do?"

"I thought about coming straight here, telling you that you were right, but … you knew you were right. So I went to the lab, to see what was going on there, and … at first it looked like just an office, and labs, you know? But then there was this room where a little kid had lived—"

"A little kid?"

"Yeah, it had a small bed and some toys and things, but there was no one there, like it was abandoned. Like that whole section was abandoned. So I kept going and I went down the elevator—and the bottom floor of that place is like nowhere you ever saw. Like a horror movie. Dark and cold and there are things floating in the air."

"That's what Will said! He said it was dark and cold and like home."

"Maybe. There's some kind of viny hole in the wall, like a door into somewhere in a dark forest."

"And then what?"

Hopper shook his head, taking the cigarette casually from her, just another shared cigarette like hundreds before in high school. Some part of his mind was so at ease, back here with her, just like nothing had ever changed. "Then they cornered me and drugged me, and I woke up back at my place with drugs and beer cans and booze bottles all over the place, like they wanted anyone I talked to to believe I was out of my head. Not too far off for me these past few years," he admitted.

Joyce put a hand on his reassuringly. "What you went through, you're allowed to go crazy for a while."

"Yeah, but I'm done with that now."

"Good." There was a silence while Joyce lit another cigarette, since it seemed obvious Hopper wasn't about to give her first one back. She sat forward. "We've gotta go through this again."

"I told you everything that I saw."

"Just tell me again."

"Upstairs or downstairs?"

"Upstairs."

"There was a laboratory where they must do experiments or something, and then there was … there was this kid's room."

"How do you know it was a kid's room?"

Hopper leaned his head against his hand. God, he was exhausted. "More like a prison."

"Why would you think it was a kid's room, then?"

"Because, I told you, the size of the bed, there was a drawing, there was a stuffed animal—"

"You didn't say there was a drawing."

"Yeah, there was a drawing, of an adult and a child. It said 11 on it …"

"Was it good?" Joyce asked.

"It was a kid's drawing, Joyce, it was stick figures." What did it matter how good it was?

She got up and grabbed a paper from another table and brought it over, putting it down in front of him. It was … must be characters from that game the kids played, and they were admittedly good. The kid had talent.

"It wasn't Will," Joyce said, certain of it.

Hopper looked at the drawing. No, this was not the same kid who had done the stick figures in the lab. It had never occurred to him that it might not be Will. Then the pieces fell into place. A kid, a kid at Benny's, Earl saying the kid had a shaved head and Hopper assuming someone had taken Will and shaved his hair off so he would be harder to identify. "Earl," he said, getting up and going over to the couch, where his papers on this case were strewn across the coffee table. "The night that Benny died, Earl said he saw some kid with a shaved head with Benny." He sat down on the couch and Joyce followed him, sitting down next to him. "Now, I pressed him, he said it might be Will, but maybe …"

"Maybe, it wasn't?" Joyce asked.

"Look. This woman, Terry Ives, she claims to have lost her daughter, Jane. She sued Brenner, she sued the government … Now, the claims came to nothing, but what if— I mean, what if this whole time I've been looking for Will and I've been chasing after some other kid?"

"Well, how does this help us find Will?"

"If we go talk to this Terry Ives, maybe she can tell us what that thing is in the basement of the lab, and where it leads, explain what the hell is going on over there." He yawned suddenly.

"All right." Joyce stood up. "I'm going to get you some blankets, you're going to sleep on the couch, and we're going to go find this Terry Ives in the morning. And if she doesn't know anything, I'm going to track this Brenner down and get some answers."

Hopper smiled sleepily. "You almost sound scary."

"What I've gone through these past few days? I feel scary."

He caught her hand. "Hey. We're going to find him."

"I know we are. And Hopper? Thanks."

"I wish I'd figured it out sooner."

"You caught on soon enough." Joyce squeezed his hand and went to get the blankets. Will was still lost, but she wasn't, and now she could find him, with Hopper's help.


	19. She's Not There

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"She's Not There"

_Please don't bother trying to find her_

_She's not there_

\- _Zombies_

They took off in Joyce's car first thing in the morning, after the first restful night's sleep Hopper had gotten in who knew how long. Joyce's couch wasn't much more comfortable than his … but for the first time in years, he'd had something to think about other than Sara when he closed his eyes.

Joyce had tossed and turned, too excited to be on the way to finding Will and too worried about where he might be and if he had found somewhere safe to hide to rest … but she was used to fitful sleep, and morning found her up and dressed with the dawn.

Hopper drove. He always had, fast and confident, like he loved it. Joyce didn't love driving so much, so she was happy to let him. They stopped first at a pay phone. Joyce had replaced her second fried phone, but Hopper didn't trust the lines at her place not to be bugged, so he called his old friend Frank from a phone on the other side of town from Joyce's house, just to be safe, in order to get Terry Ives' address.

They drove mostly in silence, lost in thought. Hopper reached for the radio once, but the first song was too cheerful and the second was a sappy love song and he decided silence was golden, at least for now.

The house, when they found it, was deep in the woods, off by itself, and hadn't had a good handyman work on it in quite some time. Everything was neat as a pin, but older, shabby. Terry Ives must have spent all her money on lawsuits, Hopper speculated.

The woman who answered the door turned out to be Terry Ives' sister. Hopper's badge got her to stop looking like she was going to get a shotgun and run them off the property, but there was hostility in every line of her body.

At last she said, "Well, you can come in, but if you want Terry to tell you anything, you're about five years too late."

With that cryptic comment, she led them into a room where a woman who looked a lot like her sat watching _The Price Is Right_.

Joyce approached her, introducing herself and explaining the situation … but there was no response, unless you counted the way Terry Ives' eyes closed when Joyce said her daughter's name. It was the only change in her expression, her breathing, or anything about her.

Moving closer, Joyce unfolded the poster of Will, holding it up in front of Terry Ives' face. The eyes focused briefly on Will's picture, then blinked slowly as the head turned again toward the TV.

"What's wrong with her?" Hopper asked the sister.

"I told you, you're wasting your time." And then, in the neat but cluttered kitchen, she explained. "She was a part of some study in college."

"MK Ultra," Hopper supplied, remembering his reading.

"Yeah, that's the one. It was started in the '50s. By the time Terry got involved, it was supposed to be ramping down, but the drugs just got crazier. Messed her up good."

"This was the CIA that ran this?"

The sister looked at him with cynical amusement. "You and Terry would've gotten along. The Man, with a big capital M. They'd pay a couple hundred bucks to people like my sister, give 'em drugs, psychedelics, LSD, mostly, and then they'd strip her naked and put her in these isolation tanks."

"Isolation tanks?" Joyce asked.

"Yeah, they were these big bathtubs, basically, filled with saltwater so you can float around there. You lose any sense of, uh, sense and feel nothing, see nothing. They wanted to 'expand the boundaries of the mind'. Real hippie crap. I mean, it's not like they were forcing her to do any of this stuff. The thing is, though, is that she didn't know she was pregnant at the time."

"Jane." Joyce leaned across the table. "Do you have any pictures of her?"

There was a moment when the sister looked at them like they were both crazy. "I don't think you guys understand," she said at last. "Terry miscarried in the third trimester."

They looked at her and at each other in shock. Nothing in the articles had indicated that … and if there was no Jane Ives, who was the child who had lived in the lab? Who was the child at Benny's?

The sister took them to a nursery still completely fitted out, let them look around, explaining that Terry believed her daughter was still alive, and claimed she was 'special', born with abilities that the sister explained as being like something from Stephen King. She laughed at their expressions, their response to what she considered make believe.

Joyce might have thought of it as make believe, too, but she had seen Will through her wall, when it suddenly turned pink and began to pulse as though it was alive. If that was true … well, she felt for Terry Ives. If it was her, she would have kept the nursery together, too.

They thanked the sister for her time—or, Hopper did. Joyce stopped in the doorway, wanting to talk to Terry Ives, wanting to tell her that she believed her, that they would look for her Jane just as they looked for Joyce's Will. But the empty stare kept her from going any closer. Terry probably wouldn't hear her, anyway, and why raise her hopes?

She got in the car with Hopper feeling all the positive energy she had woken up with drained away, gone somewhere far away with Terry Ives' mind, barely able to hold herself together. Was that where she was destined, to be sitting in a rocking chair mindlessly watching TV while Will stayed missing forever? The tears she had hoped were gone threatened to overwhelm her.

"Hey," Hopper said.

"What?"

"We're gonna find him."

"Yeah, like Terry found her daughter?"

He closed his eyes briefly. He had felt the pain of that sad, frozen house and the two women who lived in it, too. "We're close," he assured her.

Joyce looked at him in disbelief. Close? "Twelve years," she reminded him. "Twelve years she's been looking for her!"

"Then she shows up at Benny's five nights ago, which means we've got a chance. You know what I would give? For a chance?" The pain in his voice was raw and fresh. "You know what I would give?"

She did know. Not just because she knew how hard she would hold on for Will—how hard she had held on already—but because the scars his loss had left on him had been so clear to her ever since he had come to town. She would have given almost anything for him to have that chance, too, just to see him be happy again.

Before she could say anything, the walkie-talkie on the dash crackled to life. "Hey, Chief, you there? Hey, Chief."

He picked it up, putting on his cop face with an obvious effort. "Yeah, go ahead."

"Yeah, fight broke out here and—"

"Powell, I don't have time for this!"

"It's Jonathan Byers. You haven't seen Joyce, have you?"

Jonathan! Joyce felt a rush of guilt—she hadn't even wondered where he spent last night or what he'd been doing, so caught up in the mess with Lonnie and with Hopper's story. Then it struck her. Jonathan? Fighting? Jonathan never fought. He hid, yes, but he didn't fight.

"Yeah, I'll—get her," Hopper said slowly. "We'll be there in an hour."

"Okay, Chief."

"Jonathan," Joyce said helplessly as Hopper put the walkie talkie back on the dashboard. "What on earth?"

"Let's go find out." He looked at her as he turned the key. "You all right?"

Resolutely, she put the empty gaze of Terry Ives out of her mind. "I'm all right."


	20. Carry On My Wayward Son

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Carry On My Wayward Son"

_Once I rose above the noise and confusion_

_Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion_

\- _Kansas_

Joyce worried all the way to the police station. "What could Jonathan be thinking? He never gets in fights. He doesn't talk to people!"

"Don't have to talk to someone to hit 'em—or to want to hit 'em," Hopper offered.

She gave him an exasperated look. "He's not you, Hopper."

"Maybe not, but everybody gets mad sometimes."

"That's true. I almost hit Lonnie yesterday."

He glanced at her sharply. "Lonnie was here?"

She frowned, then remembered he hadn't been at the funeral because he'd been drugged by whoever ran Hawkins Lab. "He came for Will's funeral—at least, that's what he said. Really he came because some cheap lawyer convinced him he could get money suing the quarry. God, I can't believe I was so stupid I nearly fell for that!"

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"Yeah, me, too. Of course, you and Lonnie getting in another fight wouldn't have been quite the right tone for a funeral."

"Probably not. He's gone now, though, right?"

"Gone for good," Joyce confirmed. "Never again."

"Good."

They left the topic alone after that. Lonnie, and all their history around him, was a conversation for another time. If—no, _when_—they found Will.

Joyce was out of the car and on her way into the station almost before Hopper had the car in park, but Hopper wasn't far behind. The last thing Joyce needed was her older son going around and getting in fights, and he intended to get the kid alone and give him a piece of his mind.

They found Jonathan and a girl Hopper didn't recognize sitting at Powell's desk, both looking dejected.

"Hey! Jonathan? Jesus, wha—what happened?" Joyce gestured to the towel full of ice he was holding.

In Hopper's view, the kid looked pretty good. Nothing but a bruise on the cheekbone.

"I—I'm fine."

As Phil got up and came toward them, Joyce gestured at Jonathan's wrists. "Why is he wearing handcuffs?"

"'Cause your boy assaulted a police officer, that's why." Even Hopper didn't like Phil's condescending tone, and it positively enraged Joyce.

"Take them off," she demanded.

"I am afraid I cannot do that."

"Take them off!"

Hopper decided it was time for him to intervene. "You heard her. Take 'em off."

"Chief," Powell said, "I get everyone's emotional here, but … there's something you need to see."

The two of them led Hopper to Jonathan's car, parked behind the station, and popped the trunk. Inside was a box with a gun, ammunition, lighter fluid … and a bear trap. A bear trap? Last bear seen around here was five years ago, and those guys were probably drunk. It seemed like a pretty big coincidence that Jonathan's brother went missing, his mother saw a strange creature coming out of the wall, and Jonathan had a box of weapons in his car. This all had to be connected.

"Yeah, okay," he said to the two cops. "Leave this to me. I'll talk to them."

Both of them looked perfectly content to leave Jonathan—and Jonathan's mother—in Hopper's hands. He lifted the box out of the car and carried it into the building, dropping it on the desk in front of Jonathan and the girl.

"What is this?" Joyce asked, looking over the contents.

"Why don't you ask your son. We found it in his car."

"What?" Joyce asked.

Jonathan ignored her, his eyes blazing at Hopper. "Why are you going through my car?"

Hopper leaned over him. "Is that really the question you should be asking right now?" He held the kid's gaze for a moment. "I want to see you in my office."

"You won't believe me."

"Why don't you give me a try?"

They stared at each other, then Jonathan got to his feet, disbelief and distrust in the defiant way he refused to look at Hopper as he did so. Powell looked nearly as unhappy when Hopper gestured to him to uncuff the kid, but he did it.

The girl came, too, and so did Joyce. Hopper dropped his jacket and hat and leaned on the edge of the desk while everyone else took the chairs. "Now," he said, "start from the beginning."

Jonathan looked at his mother, who nodded. "It's okay, Jonathan. He knows everything."

"It started when Barbara went missing," the girl said.

"Barbara Holland?" Hopper remembered the report on his desk. So much had happened, he hadn't had time to chase it down, but he thought he remembered hearing the car had been found somewhere. "I thought she ran away."

"No. No, she didn't. She's—something happened to her. We were at a party and I left her alone, and … then she was gone."

"So your friend disappears, you decide to be Nancy Drew."

The girl crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. "That's not funny."

"No, it's not."

"Hop, this is Nancy Wheeler," Joyce said. "Her brother Mike is one of Will's best friends."

He remembered Mike. "The less annoying one."

Nancy frowned. "That's one way to put it."

"Anyway, so you decided to go look for your friend. How's Jonathan come into this?"

"Because he was in the woods—" Nancy looked helplessly at Jonathan, clearly not wanting to get him in trouble.

"I was looking for Will, taking pictures, hoping to see something in the picture I couldn't with my eye. That happens sometimes. A lot," he amended.

"And I ended up with one of the pictures, and I asked Jonathan about ... some thing that was in it. We went out looking to see if we could find any sign of it, and … we did." Nancy shivered a little. "There was a deer. It was hurt, and—bleeding, and then … the thing was there. Eating it. Eating the deer. And then I thought—Barb had cut her hand, at the party. She went for a Band-Aid, but …"

"We think it's drawn to the blood," Jonathan added.

"Then we got separated and I was running from the thing. There was a hole in a tree that I went through, and on the other side … I don't know where I was. It was like I was still in the same forest but it was all cold and gray and misty, with things floating in the air."

Hopper and Joyce glanced at each other. Will's description of where he was; the basement of Hawkins Lab.

"How did you get back?" Joyce asked urgently.

"Back through the hole, just as it was closing."

"So if Will's there and he could find another hole …"

Jonathan put a hand on Joyce's arm. "Maybe." He looked at Nancy. "Show them the picture. It's pretty blown up, but … yeah, that's what we saw eating the deer."

Nancy pulled a picture out of the inside pocket of her jacket and handed it to Joyce, who gasped.

Jonathan and Hopper both looked at her. "That what you saw?"

Joyce nodded, handing the picture up to Hopper. "That's it."

It was pretty grainy, like the kid had said, but pretty scary for all that. Hopper wouldn't want to run into this thing in the dark—or see it coming through the wall of his house. He looked at the kids. "You say blood draws this thing?"

"We don't know."

"It's just a theory."

Joyce bit her lip, the story getting to her. To think all that time when she had been worried about Lonnie and off with Hopper, Jonathan had been out there risking his life chasing down this monster—chasing it down because she hadn't been strong enough to go after it. "Hop," she said suddenly. "Can we have a minute?"

He didn't look up from the picture. "Yeah. Take your time."

She tugged on Jonathan's shoulder, pulling him out into the hallway.

Jonathan didn't wait for her to start. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"You're sorry? You're—you're sorry? That is not good enough, Jonathan."

"I know."

"It's not even close, it's not even in the, in the ballpark."

"I wanted to tell you, I just …"

"What if this thing took you, too?" she asked him. "You risked your life! And Nancy's."

"I—I thought I could save Will. I still do."

"This is not yours to fix alone! You act like you're all alone out there in the world, but you're not! You're not alone."

"I know," he muttered.

She shoved him back. "Damn it, Jonathan."

"I know."

"Damn it!" She grabbed his jacket by the lapels, and reached up to put her arm around him. Her boy. Her responsible boy, who took care of his brother and took care of her and did it all without asking for anything. They held each other tight.

Shouting voices from the main office broke into the moment, and the door to Hopper's office flew open next to them.

"Stay here," he told them, heading down to see what the ruckus was about.

Some woman in a suit was facing off against his two cops. She had a kid with her, maybe 12 or 13 years old, with his arm in a sling.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"Chief—" Phil started.

"These men are humiliating my son!"

"No, no, no, okay, that's not true."

"There was some kind of fight, Chief," Powell explained.

"A psychotic child broke his arm!" the woman shouted.

"A little girl, Chief. A little one." Phil gestured with his hand to indicate the size of the girl.

The woman whirled on him, jabbing a finger into the air in front of his face. "That tone! Do you hear that tone?"

"Honestly, I'm just trying to state a fact."

Hopper had heard enough. "I don't have time for this. Will you please take a statement?" Silently he mouthed "And get her out of here" while the woman's head was turned away from him.

As he walked away, Phil asked the kid what the girl had looked like.

Speaking up for the first time, the kid said, "She had no hair, and she was bleeding from her nose. Like a freak!"

No hair.

Hopper stopped walking and turned around. "What'd you just say?"

"I said she's a freak!"

"No, her hair. What'd you say about her hair?"

"Her head's shaved. She doesn't even look like a girl." The kid stared up at Hopper until he remembered something that made him look away. "And …"

"And what?"

"Tell the man, Troy," the kid's mom encouraged him, no longer shouting, which was a relief.

"She can—do things."

"What kind of things?"

"Like—make you fly. And piss yourself," he muttered.

"What?" Powell asked.

Hopper held up a hand for quiet. "Was she alone?"

The kid shook his head. "She always hangs out with those losers."

"Losers? What losers?"

"Mike Wheeler and those dorks."

Mike Wheeler. Hopper looked at Powell. "Get the statement." Then he turned on his heel and hurried back to his office. "You. Nancy. Your brother, he's got a new friend? A girl?"

"Mike and a girl? I don't think so."

"A bald kid. She doesn't look like a girl."

Nancy shook her head. "No. No one like that."

"Come on, we're going to go talk to him anyway."

"Mike? Mike doesn't know anything!"

"Yeah, let's find out."

He shepherded them all down the hall in front of him. Joyce hung back enough to whisper, "Is it her? The girl from the lab? Is it … Jane Ives?"

"I don't know, but it could be. Bald, and he said she could make you fly. And piss yourself."

Joyce raised her eyebrows. "She made Troy Walsh piss himself? I like her already."


	21. As Long As You Follow

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"As Long as You Follow"

_I've been wandering_

_Gone away too far_

_But the road was rough_

_To get back where you are_

\- _Fleetwood Mac_

Something told Hopper not to go straight to the Wheelers', and he blessed that old second sense. It had gotten him out of a lot of tight places, in the army and as a cop, and now. A line of long black cars, governmental cars, was parked in front of the Wheelers' house, and there were men carrying boxes of items out of the house.

"What's going on?" Nancy asked as Hopper eased the car into park.

"I don't know." He got out, taking the binoculars Joyce handed him with only an instant of surprise that Jonathan had been carrying binoculars and that Joyce knew he would want them. As he studied the men moving like ants in and out of her house, Nancy got out from the back seat and stood at his elbow.

"I have to go home."

"No, you can't."

"My mom! My dad, are there."

"They're gonna be okay," he reassured her absently, taking a step toward the line of black cars as he thought things over rapidly. Mike had to be with the bald girl. There was no other explanation. She had been the one held in that room, she had escaped, and they were looking for her, hunting her down, because she was valuable. Their experiment. So, the boys go out, against his express instructions, hunting for Will, and they find the girl, running from Benny's. They bring her home, they hide her, they protect her.

Nancy went around him, marching down the street.

"Hey." He caught her by the arm. "Hey. Hey hey hey!"

"No! Let go!"

"Hey. Listen to me, listen. The last thing in the world we need is them knowing you're mixed up in all this."

"Mike is over there!"

"They haven't found him," Hopper told her. "Not yet, at least." He pointed at a chopper in the sky.

A chopper over Hawkins. That would get some press.

Nancy stared at it in shock. "For Mike?!"

"Come on, get in the car." He dragged her with him as he went back. Once they were all inside with the door closed, he leaned on the seat, looking at the two kids in the back. "Look, we need to find them before they do. You have any idea where he might have gone?"

"No, I don't!" Nancy proclaimed loudly.

This was no time for sibling fights. "I need you to think."

"I don't know! We haven't talked a lot, I mean, lately."

"Is there any place that your parents don't know about that he might go?" Joyce asked. She was racking her brains, too, but Will liked to have some secrets, and she trusted him—and she was too tired half the time to keep tabs on everywhere he went. That was going to have to change once he was home again, she promised herself.

"I-I-I don't know," Nancy stammered, clearly too distressed and too scared to stop and think logically.

"I might," Jonathan said suddenly. He had been sitting and thinking calmly while the rest of them were panicking, the way he so often did. Joyce was proud of him and despaired of him and his solitude at the same time.

"What?" Hopper asked.

"Well, I don't know where he is, but … I think I know how to ask him. We have to go to my house."

Joyce and Hopper looked at each other. "You think they'll go there if they don't find her at Mike's?"

"I think we better get there before they think of it." He put the car in gear and resisted the urge to floor it, not wanting to attract the attention of the men in the black cars.

The house was blissfully deserted for the moment, and none of them wasted any time piling out of the car. Nancy stopped in the living room, staring at the lights and the destruction, but there was no time to answer her questions. Later, maybe.

Jonathan led them into Will's room, skirting the lights and hunting through the desk drawers. Joyce had caught on by now to what he was thinking of, and she got down on her knees, hunting under the bed. It was there, the reassuring piece of black plastic. "I got it!"

Nancy sank down on the bed while Jonathan showed her how to use the walkie-talkie. Sitting on the bed next to Nancy, Joyce noticed how they looked at each other and then hastily away as their fingers touched in the process, and wondered what was going on there, but this was hardly the time. Jonathan withdrew across the room.

Nancy spoke into the walkie-talkie cautiously. "Mike? Are you there? Mike?" Then she took her finger off the button. "Do you think they're listening?"

Hopper frowned. He did think Hawkins Lab was listening, but this was the best plan they had. "We're assuming Mike will have his receiver with him. We'll have to hope they haven't finished looking for clues at your house and thought about tracking the kids down this way."

Nancy nodded. She pressed the button. "Mike? It's me, Nancy." She waited a second and spoke again. "Mike, are you there? It's Nancy. Mike, we need you to answer. This is an emergency, Mike." There was an edge in her voice now. "Do you copy? Mike, do you copy?" She looked at Joyce. "What will we do if he doesn't answer?"

"We'll think of something. Just try him again. They're—they're probably scared, just give him some time."

"We need you to answer!" Nancy repeated into the walkie-talkie. "We need to know that you're there, Mike."

Hopper snatched the walkie-talkie out of her hands. "Listen, kid, this is the Chief. If you're there, pick up. We know you're in trouble and we know about the girl. We can protect you, we can help you, but you gotta pick up. Are you there, do you copy? Over!"

Nothing. Static. He put the useless thing down on a shelf. "Anybody got any other ideas?"

Then it crackled to life, the kid's voice coming through, thin and scared. "Yes. I copy. It's Mike. I'm here. We're here."

Hopper picked the walkie-talkie up again, speaking slowly and clearly. "Look, kid, we need to be able to get to you. We can help, I promise."

"How do I know no one's listening?"

Smart kid. "You don't. Neither do I. They're distracted right now, we might have some time, but we gotta move, okay, kid?"

"Okay. We're at the old junkyard. You know where that is?"

"The old junkyard?" They'd have been run out of the newer one, but the old one was abandoned. He knew that, but Hawkins Lab or whoever those guys were, they might not. "Yeah. Hang tight, kid, I'm coming to get you. Do not go anywhere, no matter what, copy?"

There was a pause while Mike tried to decide if this was a trap, and then, "Copy."

Hopper looked around the room. "You all stay here. I'll be back."

Immediately all three started to argue with him, and he quelled them with one of his patented cop looks. "That car going to hold all of you and four kids? No? Then I'm going and you're waiting here."

it seemed to take forever to get there, the car moving sluggishly under him. Probably it was fine, but it seemed all wrong, used as he was to his bigger, more powerful car. And when he got to the junkyard, the suits in the black cars had gotten there first. Damn it! Those kids had to be terrified, certain that he had betrayed them.

On the other hand, it felt pretty good to beat up a bunch of guys in suits who were terrorizing children in his town. He waded in, no fancy moves or ruses, just fists and faces and the satisfying thud of men dropping out of his way. The kids were clearly holed up in the abandoned school bus, and he took the stairs as soon as the last suit guy was on the ground. There they were. The Three Musketeers, and their D'Artagnan, a bald little girl in a dirty pink dress.

"All right, let's go." When none of them moved, he shouted it again. "Let's go!" This time, when he hurried down the stairs toward the car, four scared and tired kids hurried after him.


	22. Ain't Even Done with the Night

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Ain't Even Done with the Night"

_Well I'm tellin' ya that I don't know if I know what to do_

_You say that's all right, hold tight_

_Well I don't even know if I'm doing this right_

\- _John Mellencamp_

It seemed to take an eternity for Hopper to go to the junkyard and collect the kids and get back. Joyce and Jonathan and Nancy tried to make small talk, but they ran out about the time Joyce asked Nancy how her mom was. Nancy gave her a look, Jonathan gave her a look, and they all subsided into sitting and watching the window and fidgeting.

When the lights of the car finally appeared in front of the house, they all jumped up immediately and ran for the door. It felt better to Joyce to have the boys here. While Will and his friends didn't spend a ton of time in her house, it was enough that she knew them all, and Will felt closer with them present.

Nancy ran past her and hugged Mike, who clearly wasn't expecting that at all, and didn't like it much, standing there stiffly while she held him. "I was so worried about you!"

It was obvious to Joyce that Mike hadn't given a thought to his sister—and why would he? Presumably he didn't know about Barb or the monster or any of what had happened. "Yeah, uh … Me, too?" he said dutifully.

Looking past him at the unfamiliar figure with the shorn hair, wearing a fairly incongruous pink dress, Nancy frowned. "Is that my dress?"

No one answered that, the boys and the child looking around awkwardly.

They brought the kids inside. "Anyone hungry?" Joyce asked, not surprised when the answer was an all-around yes.

She started to get things out for sandwiches, but Jonathan pushed her gently aside. "I've got it, Mom."

"But—"

"No. You and Nancy go fill them in. I'll take care of this."

Joyce squeezed his arm in gratitude. "Thank you." She went back into the living room, walking straight to the little girl. "Are you all right?"

A slow, silent nod.

"My name's Mrs. Byers. Joyce. My son is missing. Did Mike tell you?"

"Will," the girl whispered.

"Yes, Will! Have you—" She caught herself. The girl already seemed overwhelmed enough. Joyce didn't want to add to that by drowning her with questions. "I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"Eleven."

"Eleven?" There wasn't much to say to that. Poor thing, raised in a lab without even a real name. "Welcome, Eleven. This is Chief Hopper, whose bark is worse than his bite, and this is Nancy, and in the kitchen is Jonathan, Will's brother. We're going to help you."

"Eleven can help, too," Mike put in. "She's strong and smart and … she knows things."

The girl gave him a grateful glance. Yes, no question, Mike had been protecting her. Joyce wondered if Karen Wheeler knew this strange girl had been in her house for, what, days at least.

Dustin was staring at Nancy. Some things never changed—Dustin always stared at Nancy. But this time it was with curiosity rather than fascination. "Why are you here?"

"Because my friend Barbara was taken."

"Taken?" Lucas echoed.

Nancy pulled out the picture. The silent girl flinched when she saw it. "You know this thing?" Nancy demanded.

"Leave her alone!" Mike said instantly.

"Hey," Hopper told him, "simmer down. It's just a question." He looked at the little girl with a gentleness that forcibly reminded Joyce of what he had lost. "You recognize the thing in this picture?"

Eleven nodded, her eyes wide in her pale face.

"Do you know where it comes from?"

She nodded again.

Quickly, Hopper explained to the boys about the lab. They already knew about Hawkins Lab's involvement—they had fled Mike's house just before the men in the black cars and the other men in the white vans had arrived. Dustin explained with wide excited eyes how Eleven had flipped a truck completely over.

Hopper and Joyce exchanged looks. Terry Ives had been right. If this was her daughter, as Joyce suspected she was, her little girl was an extremely powerful human being. Joyce wished she could tell the other woman—but if she couldn't, the next best thing she could do would be to take good care of her little girl. She made sure Eleven got the first of Jonathan's grilled cheese sandwiches and a generous helping of potato chips to start with.

"All right, kids, start talking. Wait." Hopper held up a hand when all three boys started at once. "Let me talk and you fill in the blanks. You found the girl in the woods." Nods all around. He looked at Eleven. "You were at Benny's, weren't you? Big guy, fed you?"

She nodded, pain in her eyes. So she knew what had happened to Benny. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"That wasn't your fault. Okay? Not your fault."

It had been a long time since Joyce had seen that much tenderness in Hopper's face, and she was glad to see he was still capable of it.

"So then you boys took her home and hid her, yeah? And in the process you made that kid piss himself and broke his arm?"

There was no pain in Eleven's face when she nodded this time.

"She saved me," Mike said. "I was going to fall into the quarry, and she saved me."

Joyce realized the boys didn't know about the fake body. "Will didn't fall into the quarry. He's alive. The body was a fake."

"We know." Dustin looked at her with sympathy. "We could hear you talking to him. He's in the Upside Down."

"The Upside Down?" Hopper asked, while Joyce grasped Dustin's arm and gasped, "You know where Will is?"

"Kind of." Dustin gestured to Mike, grabbing a sandwich off the plate. "You tell 'em."

"Okay. It's the flea and the acrobat."

"The what? Come on, kid, it's been a long day. Talk sense," Hopper complained.

Mike took a piece of paper and made some sort of drawing on it. "Okay," he said again. "So in this example, we're the acrobat." He pointed to a stick figure standing on a line. Then he pointed to something underneath the line. "Will and Barbara—and that monster—they're this flea. And this is the Upside Down, where Will is hiding. Mr. Clark said the only way to get there is through a rip of time and space."

"A gate," Dustin clarified.

"That we tracked to Hawkins Lab."

"With our compasses."

As usual with these guys, Joyce was impressed by their collective intelligence—and couldn't follow it at all. She looked questioningly at Dustin.

"Okay," he said, "so the gate has a really strong electromagnetic field, and that can change the directions of a compass needle."

"Is this gate underground?" Hopper asked.

"Yes." The single soft word had come from Eleven. She was looking at Hopper, who was looking at her, the two of them understanding each other.

"Near a large water tank?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"H-how do you know all that?" Dustin asked him.

"He's seen it," Mike guessed.

"Is-is there any way that you could, that you could reach Will?" Joyce hated to ask it of Eleven, who looked exhausted and underfed and generally in need of love, not of being asked to do impossible things—but Will was still out there, had been out there for days, and Joyce needed to know he was still okay. "That you could talk to him, in this—"

"The Upside Down," Eleven confirmed.

"The Upside Down, yeah."

The girl nodded.

"And my friend Barbara," Nancy added. "Can you find her, too?"

"Yes."

They gave Eleven Barbara's picture, and the walkie-talkie, and gathered around her while she sat at the table, closing her eyes and concentrating.

Joyce watched in fascination and terror and wild worry as the little girl's face tightened, her closed eyes moving, the walkie-talkie emitting bursts of static. The lights flickered.

Eleven's eyes opened and she looked at Joyce in pain and embarrassment and a little touch of fear. She was used to being punished when she let people down, Joyce realized, certain scenes of her own life coming back to her and making her feel a sudden kinship with this unusual child. Then Eleven spoke, her voice trembling. "I'm sorry."

Clinging to Jonathan's hand as it rested on her shoulder, Joyce could feel her fear rising. "What? What's wrong? What happened?"

"I can't find them."

Joyce barely held back tears, and Jonathan had to turn away. Eleven got up and rushed to the bathroom. "What did that mean?" Joyce asked the boys. "Is Will—gone?"

"No," Mike said immediately.

"I don't think so," Dustin said. "I think her battery's low."

"Her what?" Hopper asked.

Mike explained, "Whenever she uses her powers she gets weak."

"The more energy she uses, the more tired she gets."

"Like, she flipped the van earlier," Lucas added.

"It was awesome."

"But she's drained," Mike said.

"Like a bad battery."

"How do we make her better?" Joyce asked.

"We don't. We just have to wait and … try again."

"Well, how long?" Nancy asked.

Mike shrugged. "I don't know."

"Bath."

Joyce turned at the sound of Eleven's voice. "What?"

"I can find them … in the bath."

"What kind of bath? Like, run you a bath in the tub?"

"No, it was … different." Eleven was clearly unused to speaking so much, and to such a large group. She looked at Mike, appealing for help.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"I do." Hopper looked at Eleven. "The tank, right? They used the water in the tank to boost your abilities?"

She nodded.

Joyce remembered what Terry Ives' sister had said. "The isolation tanks! Saltwater!" She looked at Hopper for confirmation.

"Yeah. That's it." Hopper looked around at the boys. "Any of you science … kids know how to make a sensory deprivation tank?"

They looked blankly at each other. Then Dustin grinned. "But I know who does. Can I use your phone, Mrs. Byers?"

"Sure. Go ahead."

They waited while Dustin called Mr. Clark and talked him into giving him the directions over the phone, despite the late hour. He hung up, looking at Joyce across the table. "Do you still have that kiddie pool we bobbed for apples in?"

"I … think so, yeah," she answered, looking to Jonathan, who nodded.

"Good. Then we just need salt. Lots of it."

"How much is lots?" Hopper asked.

Dustin did some quick math. "Fifteen hundred pounds."

"Well, where are we going to get that much salt?" Nancy asked.

"I know." Hopper got abruptly to his feet. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"Where do you think there's a whole warehouse full of salt?" he asked her.

"Chief, you're a genius!" Dustin said, delighted. He frowned at the rest of him in disappointment when they still didn't get it. "The salt they use on the roads in the winter!"

There was a chorus of understanding. They piled into Hopper's truck and Jonathan's car and drove to the school. Joyce was glad to be going—if the people from the lab knew about Mike, they probably knew about Will, and it was only a matter of time before they made their way to her house.


	23. Bridge Over Troubled Water

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Bridge Over Troubled Water"

_I'll take your part, oh, when darkness comes_

_And pain is all around_

_Like a bridge over troubled water_

_I will lay me down_

\- _Simon and Garfunkel_

Hopper and Jonathan did the heavy lifting, moving bags of de-icing salt from storage onto a cart, while the others got the kiddie pool set up. Hopper tried not to think of what a long day it had already been and how much longer it was going to be, and how much he'd like a cigarette and a beer and a hot shower.

"Wait," Jonathan said, catching one of the bags. "It's not going to snow next week, is it?"

"Worst case, no school."

"Even if you find Will in there, what are we gonna do about that thing?"

Hopper had kind of hoped the question would be another softball. At least he had an answer to this one, if not the answer. "_We're_ not gonna do anything. I don't want you anywhere near this, all right? Your mom's been through enough already." It was bad enough Joyce had almost certainly already lost one son. She wasn't losing both of them, not if Jim Hopper had anything to say about it.

"He's my brother!"

"Listen to me." Hopper grasped the kid's shoulder, holding on. "I'm gonna find him. All right? You gotta trust me on this. I am going to find him." He let go, hoping he had been convincing. It was hard to do when you were pretty damned sure you were lying. But if someone was going to find Joyce's son dead, or not find him at all, it was going to be him so he could be the one to deliver the news, so he could be there to catch her.

Angry at having to lie, at the whole situation, he threw the next bag pretty hard, so that Jonathan staggered as he caught it.

"I can help," the kid muttered.

"Yeah, I know you can. But if you come help and something happens to you, who's going to be with your mom? Who's going to help her through it? I can do what I can, but she needs you. She depends on you, she loves you, she trusts you. The two of you, you're a unit, taking care of Will, and I see the way you take care of her, too. I am not going to be part of putting you in danger when losing you means Joyce loses herself, too." He caught himself, breathing hard after the speech, looking uncomfortably away from Jonathan's entirely too perceptive eyes. He hadn't meant to say anywhere near that much, to reveal how much Joyce and what she stood for, the past history they shared, meant to him.

After a few more bags, Jonathan said quietly, "Hopper."

"Yeah."

"I … heard. About you. What happened to you. I'm … sorry."

Hopper vividly remembered his own teenage years, and he wasn't certain he'd have been capable of the genuine empathy he heard in Jonathan's voice. "Thanks, kid," he said gruffly. "So you believe me, then? When I tell you I'm going to find him."

"I believe you will … if it's possible." Jonathan was staring down at the bags of salt, and Hopper felt for him, for the way he had been dragged around. He had believed in the fake body, after all, and now he had some kind of hope, but the most fragile kind, impossible to trust.

Hopper didn't add any more false hope of his own. The kid had the facts down cold—Hopper would come through, if it was possible.

* * *

Joyce took Eleven into one the science classroom to let her rest while the others were filling the pool. The little girl was so silent, so watchful, but Joyce could see her thinking, learning, filling in the gaps of a life lived in a science lab. It hurt her to think of Terry Ives living a whole life without ever having seen this beautiful child; it hurt her to think that Eleven had a mother out there who loved her so much and probably knew nothing about her.

She put a hand on Eleven's shoulder and removed it immediately when the girl flinched. "Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Let's see, we have the water to float in, and we can keep it quiet, what else do we need?" She knew, but she waited for the answer.

"Dark."

"Right, you need darkness. What do we have here?" Joyce looked around and in a cupboard she found a pair of safety goggles and some black electrical tape. She sat down facing Eleven, covering the goggles thoroughly with the tape. "This will keep it dark for you. Just like in your bathtub." She put the goggles down, unnerved by the stillness, by the quiet willingness to put herself in a situation that must be at the very least uncomfortable, if not actually dangerous, for someone she had never met. "You're a very brave girl," she told Eleven, wanting her to know that what she was doing was exceptional. Extraordinary. "You know that, don't you?"

Eleven looked away, uncomfortable with the praise.

"Everything you're doing, for my boy, for Will … for my family. Thank you."

There were tears slowly gathering in the big brown eyes that looked back at her so seriously, and Joyce reached for Eleven's hands, holding them in hers.

"Listen," Joyce said, "I am going to be there with you the whole time. And if it ever gets too scary, in that … place, you just let me know. Okay?"

"Yes."

Joyce wished it didn't have to be this way, that this child didn't have to put herself in harm's way, but there was no getting around it. "Ready?"

Eleven drew herself up, gathering some inner strength. "Ready."

"Okay." Keeping Eleven's hand in hers, Joyce got to her feet. The girl clung to her hand until they reached the door of the classroom, when she let go and walked on ahead. Watching her, Joyce couldn't help remembering Will and Jonathan as very small boys, the way they would hold her hand until just before their friends could see them and then break away, marching forward by themselves. She hoped she had the chance to watch Eleven continue to grow as she had them—the way she had started off, she was going to be quite the young lady some day.

At last the pool was ready. Eleven took off her socks and the watch she wore, which looked like Mike's, and took the goggles from Joyce, stepping into the pool. She sank down, the smocked dress ballooning up around her.

Almost immediately the lights flickered. The rest of them clung to the edges of the pool, watching as Eleven floated, there in front of them in body but in mind somewhere else, somewhere far away.

"Barb," she whispered. "Barbara?"

Next to Joyce, Nancy tensed, rising up on her knees. In the pool, Eleven shuddered, the lights dimming around them.

"What's going on?" Nancy asked.

"I don't know," Mike answered, his eyes fixed on Eleven's frightened face.

"Is Barb okay? Is she okay?"

"Gone," Eleven said tremulously. "Gone. Gone."

Nancy gasped, understanding what the word truly meant, her hand covering her mouth.

Eleven kept repeating "Gone" in more and more strident tones. Whatever had happened to Barb, Eleven was terrified. Joyce took her outstretched arm, pulling the little body close to her. On Eleven's other side, Hopper reached for her and held her hand. "It's okay," Joyce whispered. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'm right here. I'm right here, honey. It's okay. I got you. Don't be afraid. I'm right here with you. It's okay, you're safe." She kept talking repeating the comforting phrases, the ones she used on the boys in the middle of a nightmare or a crisis, until Eleven's breathing calmed.

"Castle Byers," she whispered. "Castle Byers."

Joyce looked anxiously at Jonathan. Will had to be there. Didn't he? He had to. He couldn't be gone.

Then, "Will?"

Gasping, Joyce's grip tightened on Eleven's hand. "You tell him, tell him I'm coming. Mom is coming."

Through the walkie-talkie, Will's voice came, clear but shaky. "Hurry," he said. "Hurry."

Joyce wanted to weep. Her baby was alive, but he needed her, now. She clenched her teeth against the tears. Someone else's baby needed her right this minute, and she was going to hold Eleven as long as it took. "Okay, listen, you tell him to stay where he is. We're coming. We're coming, okay? We're coming, honey!"

Eleven in the pool wasn't speaking, but through the walkie-talkie they could hear her crying in terror, and she sat up abruptly, yanking the goggles off her head. Joyce gathered her up, holding her close. "It's okay. I've got you. Oh, it's okay, I've got you, I've got you." Eleven clung to her, crying, and Joyce held her tight.


	24. Ain't No Mountain High Enough

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Ain't No Mountain High Enough"

_'Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough_

_Ain't no valley low enough_

_Ain't no river wide enough_

_To keep me from getting to you_

\- _Diana Ross_

Once Eleven had calmed down, Joyce helped her out of the kiddie pool. Mike was waiting with a big towel, and he wrapped it around Eleven and led her over to the bleachers, where he and the other boys surrounded her, rubbing her back and helping to warm her up. She seemed drained, all the life gone out of her. Hopper couldn't look. It was too much like Sara—the dark circles under the eyes, the pale face, the shorn head. He wanted to take whoever had hurt that little girl and lock them away where he could punch the living daylights out of them at least once a day.

But he couldn't do that. What he could do was get back to that gate and get to this Upside Down and bring back Joyce's son and try to end this nightmare for all of them.

Once Eleven was settled, he drew Joyce aside. "She said something about Castle Byers. Is that your house? Is Will at your house?"

"No, it's a fort. He built it himself."

"So this fort, where is it?"

"Uh, it's in the woods behind our house …"

"He used to go there," Jonathan added. "To hide."

Clearly it had worked, at least so far. Hopper didn't like the way Eleven had melted down there right after she talked to Will. It felt too much like something had happened to the kid. He felt an urgency to get moving before there was time for anything else to go wrong. He stalked off, leaving Joyce and Jonathan behind. They hurried after him as he burst out through the doors of the gym.

He turned and glared at them both. "Hey! Get back inside!"

Joyce glared back at him as she realized what he meant to do. "What, are you insane? No, I'm going!"

"Look, something happens to me, I don't make it back—"

"Then I'll go! You stay. Are you kidding me? He's my son, Hop! My son. I'm going."

Hopper knew better than to argue with her when she got like this. He used to love it when she got like that, when she went toe to toe with him and wouldn't back down. Everyone backed down for him, especially when he was mad—but sometimes Joyce got mad enough to stand her ground. This time, though … this time wasn't getting in trouble with a teacher, or his parents, or sneaking beers. This was going into some sci-fi horror movie nightmare where one person at least had already died and from which they had no guarantee of coming back, and he couldn't stand to think of her lost there. It scared the shit out of him. But she was right—Will was her son, and she had never given up, never stopped believing. She deserved to go. She needed to go, just like he would have needed to go if it was Sara lost there.

While he was wrestling with his fears, Joyce turned to Jonathan. "Listen, I need you to stay here."

"No!"

"And—and, watch over the kids …"

"No, Mom, I can help!"

Over his protests she pulled him close, holding him like it was the last time, trying not to be afraid that maybe it was the last time. "Please, I need you to stay," she repeated. She needed to know one of them was safe, that he would be okay while she was gone.

From the car, Hopper shouted "Joyce!" in a tone that meant business.

"Please," she said to Jonathan. "Please."

"Okay."

"Joyce, come on!"

"I'm gonna find him," she promised Jonathan. "I'm gonna find him."

Then she tore herself away from Jonathan and got in the car with Hopper, who peeled out of the parking spot in a way she remembered vividly—the way that said he had backed down, but he was pissed about it.

"He's my son, Hop," she said softly while he drove, his knuckles white on the wheel and his jaw clenched. "He's been somewhere I can't get to, where I can't help him. I'll go out of my mind if I can't do … something. I promised I would come for him. I have to."

"I know," Hopper bit off. "All right? I know. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

Well, that was fair enough. Joyce held on to the car door handle while he took a turn on two wheels—or at least, it felt that way.

By the time they pulled up in front of a chain link fence in the middle of the woods, Hopper had calmed down. Thinking out the plan for how to get to the gate had helped. It had taken his mind off the fear. He grabbed the wire cutters out of the back seat and got out of the car. Joyce came with him to the fence.

"So this is your plan?"

"Worked for me before, didn't it?"

"Well, did it?"

Okay, maybe not all that well, but he had come out of the place with clues, important clues. "Come on, trust me," he said, cutting his way through the fence. He turned and reached out a hand to her. "Do you trust me?"

She looked up at him, her brown eyes so like he remembered, and she nodded and took his hand. He held it tightly until she was through the fence, and then they hurried across the grounds toward the distant building.

But they didn't make it to the building. The floodlights came on before they even neared the doors. So, Plan B it was, then. He only hoped it wouldn't take too long.


	25. Smooth Operator

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

Smooth Operator

_No place for beginners or sensitive hearts_

_When sentiment is left to chance_

_No place to be ending but somewhere to start_

\- _Sade_

As armed guards with MP armbands surrounded them, Joyce and Hopper put their hands up. "It's all right," he said to her softly, with a reassurance he was far from feeling. "Let me do the talking."

There was an unnerving silence as they were herded toward the door. Hopper was still distracted by the MP armbands. If the lab was being backed up by the military, they weren't playing any longer. How could he protect Joyce, and protect the kids, and save Will, and get them all out of here without anyone ending up as a science experiment?

Inside, they were taken to the lab portion of the building, and one of the MPs grabbed Joyce by the arm, pulling her toward an interrogation room. "No," she said, trying to twist away. "No. Hop?"

"It's okay, Joyce. Just don't say anything."

He was grabbed and taken to a different room, craning his neck trying to watch her, to be sure she was going to be okay. He could still hear her shouting "No" and struggling when the door was slammed behind him.

* * *

Joyce eventually lost the fight and was handcuffed to a chair in the cold room with the tiled walls, as she had expected would happen. And then they left her there for what felt like an eternity, an eternity in which Will was still in that place, still lost and hiding and terrified and needing his mother. "Hurry," he had told Eleven. Joyce was trying, and she was increasingly enraged at these people who had tortured that little girl and left her son trapped on the other side of reality and were now keeping her from going after him.

"Let me out of here!" she screamed at them. "Somebody!" She tugged and twisted at the handcuffs and shifted the chair around, trying to find some way, any way, to get loose and find Hopper. "Please!" She pulled at the handcuffs hard, until it hurt. "Let me out!"

After longer than she would have liked, the door opened and a tall man with white hair came into the room. He closed the door carefully behind him, put his hands in the pockets of his immaculate suit, and began walking slowly toward her, as if he had all the time in the world.

Joyce just stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Your son," he said at last. "We know you've been in contact with him."

She was stunned. They knew? They knew, and they hadn't done anything? These were the people who had let her have a fake funeral, she reminded herself. So upset she could barely think straight, she stammered, "You have to let me … let me …"

"When?" he demanded. "And how did you make contact with him?"

"What?"

"Hm?" He waited, then whispered, "Six."

"What?"

"Six," he repeated. He moved to the chair opposite her, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back. "Six people have been taken this week. This … thing that took your son? We don't really understand it. But its behavior is predictable. Like all animals, it eats." He pulled out the chair and took his seat, tucking his tie carefully behind the table and resting his clasped hands in front of him.

The precision of him, the cold disinterest in her son's well-being, the deliberate wasting of time, had Joyce boiling mad, but she tried to keep calm, to think clearly and figure out a way through this man and out the door to the gate so she could get to Will. That was what mattered now.

"It will take more sons," the white-haired man said to her. "More daughters. I want to save them. I want to save your son. But I can't do that. Not without your help."

She couldn't take it anymore, this pretense. "Stop. I know who you are. I know what you've done. You took my boy away from me. You left him in that place to die. You faked his death. We had a funeral; we buried him! And now you're asking for my help?"

The man's expression hadn't changed. Not even a little. Nothing she had said made any difference to him. The monstrosity of it was something he either didn't realize or didn't care about—or both.

"Go to hell."

He reacted to that, lifting his head as if in anger.

"You won't help?"

"You mean, like you didn't help my son? Exactly."

They looked at each other across the table.

* * *

Down the hall, Hopper hadn't had long to wait at all. The suit he had punched earlier was more than happy to get some payback. He was accompanied by a blonde woman and a dark-haired man, both also in suits—although theirs were more expensive. The security guard's suit was cheap, and Hopper wondered if he resented the difference in pay.

Or he wondered that until he was jabbed in the side with a taser.

When the pain stopped, he was left gasping for breath.

"What do you know?" the dark-haired man said.

"Everything."

Smart mouths got punished. Hopper had learned that a long time ago. But he could take it. He told himself that over and over as he and the security guard circled the room. A punch here, a tase there, anything to break him, to get the truth from him. He kept telling them the truth, that he knew everything, but they didn't want to hear it. They wanted him punished. They were pissed they had lost the girl, they were pissed the creature was loose, they were pissed that Hopper had found out even some of their little secrets, and they enjoyed watching him in pain.

He was tased again and he slid down the wall, his legs not wanting to hold him up any longer.

"Okay," said the dark-haired man. "Now, what do you know?"

"I'm sorry. Did I stutter?"

The two suits glanced at each other.

"I told you," Hopper repeated. "Everything."

He got the taser again for that one, right in the neck, spraying spit across the floor. At least he hadn't bitten his tongue yet. He was trying to avoid it.

The woman spoke this time, sharp and angry. "What do you know?"

"I know you do experiments on kidnapped little kids whose parents' brains you turn to mush." The woman shifted, her face tensing. Clear admittance of guilt there. He went on, "And I know you went a little too far this time and you messed up in a big way. I mean, you really messed up, didn't you? Big time. That's why you're trying to cover your tracks."

They were unhappy now, but they were convinced that he knew more than they wanted him to.

"You killed Benny Hammond, you faked Will Byers' death, you made it look like a little girl just ran away. See, I told you. I know everything."

"Who are you working with?" the dark-haired guy demanded.

"Nobody. But I did give all this over to my friend at the _Times_; he's gonna blow this thing wide open." Hopper started to laugh, hoping they wouldn't see that for the obvious bluff it was. He got the taser again, so hopefully that was a good sign. The two men hauled him to his feet and dragged him over to the chair while he was still too weak from the jolts to struggle. They slammed him down into the chair and the security guard leaned down in front of him.

"You're just a junkie. Small town cop who had a really bad week. Took one too many pills this time."

Behind the security guard, the dark-haired guy was preparing a syringe. Hopper had to make sure he didn't get what was in that. He probably had a tolerance to whatever it was, but he had to be at full capacity if he was going to help Joyce find her son and protect the other kids in the process. Or they were making it extra strong to take care of him once and for all, which meant that Joyce and all the others were as good as dead. That wasn't happening either. Not on his watch. Not in his town.

The woman stopped in front of him, crossing her arms over her chest. "You made a mistake coming back here."

Hopper kept his body still and his face calm, not letting any of his growing concern about getting out of here safely and taking care of everyone who was looking to him show. "No, I didn't. Here's what's going to happen: You let me and Joyce Byers go. You're gonna give us anything we need and we're gonna find her son. And then we're going to forget that any of this ever happened."

"Is that right?"

"Yeah. That's right."

"Why would we bother?"

"Because it's a lot harder to make a chief of police disappear than it is a couple of little kids. Because it's too much of a coincidence if something happens to me and to Joyce at the same time. Because she's smarter than you think she is. Because all those kids going missing and their families getting terrorized is bad for business. Because more people know about this than you're aware of." He looked up at the woman, holding her gaze with his. "And because I know where she is."

That got her. Her eyes darted to the dark-haired man and back before she had time to steel her reaction. Quietly, all three of them left the room, left him there … waiting.

Hopper could almost have timed Brenner's arrival in the room to the minute. A carefully calculated amount of time to keep him from realizing how desperate they were to get Eleven back.

He was older than Hopper had imagined, more … polished. Not a lab rat, this one. A true believer. His movements were careful, deliberate. The movements of a man who had spent a lifetime studying human behavior.

Brenner locked the door and turned to Hopper, reaching into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. The right brand, too. Looked like they had come from his truck. Yep, that was his lighter tucked inside the pack. Hopper took it out and lit a cigarette, waiting for Brenner to engage.

"Where's the girl?"

Hopper took a deep drag. Damn, that felt good. "You gotta give me your word. Nobody's ever gonna find out about this. And those other three kids, those boys, you're gonna leave them alone. Then I'll tell you. Tell you where your little science experiment is." He took another drag off the cigarette, as much to hide his own guilt as because he needed it. Thinking of that poor kid, her big dark eyes so scared, how brave she had been going into that pool, how she had clung to Joyce and cried … He wanted to protect her, not to betray her. But he had no choice. Will was going to die—might be dead already—if Hopper couldn't get to him, and Joyce would go out of her mind, off her nut like her Aunt Darlene, if they couldn't find her son. Once this was over, he'd find a way to get back in here for Eleven, he promised himself. But for now—Will was the priority mission, and Eleven was the price of getting to him.

Brenner moved slightly, his heels clicking on the floor. "What assurance do I have that you're telling me the truth?"

"What assurance I have that you're not just going to lock me in here and leave me? Trust goes both ways, Doc."

"You realize the boy is almost certainly dead, don't you?"

"I heard his voice not two hours ago. There's still a chance for that woman in there to find her son. You owe her that, after what you put her through."

Silence. Brenner didn't disagree.

Hopper waited. He was in the strong position, for the moment, but the wrong word could blow the whole thing up.

"Assistance getting through to where the boy is, and we leave him and his friends and their families alone—and you tell me where the girl is and you cover all this up with the town and any press?"

"That's right."

Brenner moved in front of him, holding out a thin, pale hand. "Agreed."

Hopper took it, highly amused that after all this, a simple handshake was still sealing the deal. Nice to know some things never changed.


	26. Space Oddity

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Space Oddity"

_I'm stepping through the door_

_And I'm floating in a most peculiar way_

_And the stars look very different today_

\- _David Bowie_

The man in the suit had left after a sharp knock on the door, and Joyce was alone again, angry and now a little scared. Had they found the children? Was Jonathan okay? Did they have Eleven? There was no question in Joyce's mind that if they had taken Eleven back, Joyce was going to look for her, as if she was her own child. But in the meantime, they would be punishing Eleven for running away. Thinking of that scared look in the little girl's big brown eyes, and her all alone with no one to comfort her, Joyce wanted to cry, and she wanted to bust these damned handcuffs off and get up and go do something—for Will, for Eleven, for herself and Jonathan, for Hopper.

Finally the door opened and, to her relief, Hopper was the one coming through. Two soldiers in full uniform were behind him. One of them came to Joyce and unlocked the handcuffs. She rubbed her wrists, which were raw from how many times she had tried to yank her hands out of the cuffs.

Hopper gave her a nod, but didn't say anything, so Joyce kept quiet as well, and they followed the soldiers out of the room and down a long hall.

It was too silent. As though they were the only ones in the building. At last, unable to keep quiet any longer, Joyce whispered to Hop, "I don't understand."

Looking straight ahead, Hopper said, "We came to an agreement."

"What?"

"Look, everything that's happened here and everything that's gonna happen, we don't talk about. You want Will back? This place had nothing to do with it. That's the deal."

Joyce didn't like it. If the place didn't take any blame, then it could keep operating, keep tormenting children like Eleven, keep that Upside Down place open where other people could be lost in it. But—she wanted her son back. Needed him back. Enough to go along.

"You got it?" Hopper asked, still not looking at her.

She nodded.

They were led into a room with big bulky suits like you saw on TV sometimes after an oil spill.

"What is this?" Hopper asked.

A man in a lab coat answered, "Protection. The atmosphere's toxic."

"B-but my son's in there. He—"

"Put it on," Hopper told her, his tone brooking no argument.

It was evident to Joyce that none of the other people around them had been into the Upside Down. They had no idea what lay beyond the wall, and they didn't care. She was fairly certain none of them expected her and Hopper to come back.

Suited up, they were sent alone down the elevator. When it opened, Joyce thought she was … underwater, maybe. In another world. Things floated by, white flakes like ashes, or snow, or feathers. And some kind of slimy vine was climbing the walls.

Hopper led her to the room with the gate, like a giant mouth in the wall. Joyce didn't like it. She was afraid. But how could she be afraid if Will had been in there, by himself, all the time and had been so brave? She had to be brave for him. Looking up at Hopper, she nodded. He raised his gun and led the way.

Even in the suit, walking through the gate was slimy and gross and left Joyce feeling weighed down with leftover goop. Behind them, the hole they had made closed over, like they had never been there.

* * *

Hopper understood now what Joyce's kid had meant when he said it was like home, but dark and cold. The Upside Down was a perfect copy of the real world, only it appeared that everything was slowly being eaten away by … whatever the vines were.

Next to him, Joyce's breathing was audible. Even in the silence, it was too audible. He grasped her by the arm. "Hey, you all right?"

"Yeah," she gasped.

She was panicking, he realized, and the artificial breathing apparatus in the suit wasn't helping. "I need you to relax, okay? I want you to slow down your breathing. Take deep breaths. In. And out. Deep breath in. And out. In. And out."

For some reason, he couldn't help thinking about Sara, remembering that day in the park when she couldn't catch her breath, the first time they knew something was wrong. He remembered it so vividly it was like he was there, and this … this was only a nightmare. He had said the same thing to her that day—"Just breathe. In and out." Maybe that was why he was thinking of it. But God, she felt so close right now, like he could almost reach out and touch her. He missed her so much.

With difficulty, he brought himself back to the present, patting Joyce's arm. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm good."

"Your house?" he asked.

"Castle Byers." They walked together toward the dark woods.

As they made their way through the woods, Hopper found an open egg. About the size of a dragon's egg, if dragons were real. And hell, maybe they were—if all this stuff could be happening in Hawkins, anything was possible. So the creature was breeding? Brenner had left that part out. Maybe he didn't know. This whole thing felt like an experiment gone wrong, one they were trying to cover up and pretend didn't exist and really knew not a damn thing about.

While he stopped to look at the egg, Joyce went on ahead, and he heard her scream her son's name. There was a desperation in her voice that didn't sound like she had found him alive and waiting for her. Concerned, Hopper raised his gun and flashlight and went after her.

Castle Byers, whatever it had been before, was a pile of sticks now. The thing had found Will. But there was nothing here to indicate that it had … harmed him. No blood or anything of that nature. What he did see was a stuffed lion. A very familiar stuffed lion that brought him back to that terrible cold hospital room, the way they had tried to make it feel like home for Sara. They had read to her, sung to her, held her, colored with her—anything to take her mind off the pain and the discomfort and the fear she lived with.

While Joyce screamed for her son, Hopper knelt to touch the toy, still lost halfway between memory and reality, not entirely sure which was which. In his memory he had been helpless, unable to stop what was happening to take his girl away from him, barely able to keep up a brave front to help her be strong, falling apart any time he was alone. Here in what seemed to be reality, he was equally helpless to stop whatever was happening to Joyce's boy, trying to help her be strong, but not sure he could if what lay ahead of them was the horror he expected it to be.

A particularly loud shriek of "WILL!" brought him back to his senses, and he got to his feet, joining Joyce in calling the kid's name as they stumbled through the woods toward her house in hopes that the kid might have gone there.

Then they heard a scream, weird and unearthly, coming from ahead of them. Something was in pain. To Hopper, it didn't sound like a child, but he didn't know what kind of wildlife they had here. He and Joyce hadn't seen any indication of a living thing other than that hatched egg, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything.

They went on ahead to Joyce's house, where the screaming seemed to be coming from. The inside of the house was terrifying—just like her real house, only vines and goop covering everything. Hopper's first thought was to be impressed that Will had lasted as long as he had. His second was to wonder what the kid had been eating all this time. That couldn't have been pleasant.

In the hallway, there was a smear of blood. Something—probably the creature, Hopper thought—had been here, and been wounded. But by what? Or whom?

"It was hurt," he said. Turning, he followed the blood toward the door.

Behind him, Joyce turned to look at the empty house. "Jonathan?"

"Joyce, come on!"

"Hop, it was Jonathan. I think they did something."

"Whatever they did, they hurt it. Now there's a blood trail to follow."

"Then let's hurry."

It was hard to hurry too fast in the suits, but being able to follow the trail helped. It led them into town, a deserted, decaying version of Hawkins that Hopper knew he would never be able to get out of his head.

The trail led them into the library. Judging from the density of vines and goop inside, the creature had been using it as a lair. The blood drops took them all the way into the very back of the building, where it was darkest. The flashlights shone on bodies in various stages of decay half-buried in vines and slime, including that of a red-haired girl that had to be Barbara Holland. Poor kid. She'd never had a chance.

Then Joyce's light shone on a pale face over a red jacket. Some kind of … viny thing was in his mouth. Was it feeding on him?

"Will! Will!"

The kid didn't move or respond as Joyce came toward him.

"Will? Oh, my God! Hopper! Get it out, get it out!"

As he approached the child, Hopper wasn't certain if it was Will Byers in the Upside Down he was seeing or Sara Hopper in the hospital room, a breathing tube down her throat. When he grabbed hold of the vine, it felt as though he was pulling the tube out of Sara as well, bringing her back to life and childhood. He hauled steadily on the thing until it popped free, throwing it to the ground, where it squealed and writhed until he pumped a whole lot of bullets into it in his panic.

They got Will down and laid him on the ground, both of them pulling off their helmets. Joyce put her ear down to Will's mouth and looked up at Hopper in despair. "He's not breathing. He's not breathing!"

She was on the edge of hysterics, to have come so close and to have lost her boy anyway, but Hopper wasn't about to give up. Not yet. Not without trying everything he damned well could.

"Joyce, Joyce, Joyce, listen to me. Listen to me, listen to me." He tugged off his glove, placing his hand flat on the kid's chest. "I need you to tilt his head back and lift his chin."

As Hopper started the chest compressions, Joyce did as she was told, calming when she had something specific to do, as he had known she would.

"Now, when I tell you, you're going to pinch his nostrils and breathe into his mouth. Twice. One second, then pause—twenty-two, twenty-three—then one second. " He finished counting. "Now. Go!" Joyce breathed, but nothing happened. Hopper kept up the chest compressions. "Come on, kid, come on!"

Next to him, Joyce was entreating her boy to come back to her in every way she could think of.

And somehow Will became Sara again, the doctors compressing her chest as she flatlined, Hopper on the sidelines able to do nothing more than hold Diane and watch as his girl slipped away and was gone. That was not happening again today. He was not losing another child. He resorted to pounding on Will's chest to try to shock his heart back, seeing that green line on the monitor in his mind, hearing the beep that meant his daughter's heart had stopped. "Come on, kid!"

Despite their hope, despite how hard they were trying, both of them were shocked when Will suddenly sat up, gasping a breath. Hopper had to take a moment to remember what was real—that the hospital room was in the past, that part of his life over and done with, and this was reality, where they had just brought Joyce's son back from the dead both figuratively and literally.

As he coughed and sputtered, Joyce held him, torn between laughing and crying in her vast relief. Hopper grabbed the breathing apparatus—the kid shouldn't have to breathe this toxic gunk any longer. He had to reach around Joyce to put it on Will, and so he ended up holding both of them while Joyce clung to his arm and leaned back against him, and it felt … right.

For the first time in a lot of long years, Jim Hopper was exactly where he belonged.


	27. Ordinary World

27

"Ordinary World"

_What has happened to it all?_

_Crazy, some'd say_

_Where is the life that I recognize?_

_Gone away_

_But I won't cry for yesterday_

_There's an ordinary world_

_Somehow I have to find_

\- _Duran Duran_

Joyce had to give credit to the people from Hawkins Lab—when she and Hopper arrived on the main floor in the elevator with Will limp and pale but alive and breathing in Hopper's arms, they had Will in an ambulance on the way to the hospital very quickly, and one of the representatives of the lab followed the ambulance and took Will's doctor aside, talking to him, in order to ensure Will's care would be appropriate.

At some point, Joyce would have to know what story was given so she could follow it as people asked her about Will, but for the moment, she was so glad to see Will back on this side of the world and being taken care of that she didn't care what Hawkins Lab had to say.

Hopper stayed with her, not saying much, for a while, then abruptly disappeared. Since Will was sedated and not likely to wake for some time yet, Joyce followed him outside the hospital where he was standing smoking a cigarette and looking up at the stars.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "This must be the last place in the world you want to be."

"Will's okay. That makes it the only place to be. I just … needed a little air."

She took the cigarette from him, taking a deep drag, thinking about all the times they had shared a cigarette back in high school. "Thank you, Hop. For … believing me, and fighting for Will, and for—" Her voice cracked, her eyes welling with tears. "For bringing my boy back to me."

But Hopper shook his head. "You did that. You believed what you knew and you didn't let anyone tell you different. You stayed strong for the kid and you didn't stop until you got to him. You're a good mom, Joyce. That kid—that kid is lucky to have you." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, then took his cigarette back. "Now, get back in there so you're there when he wakes up. You both deserve that."

She understood that he needed to be alone, so she didn't stop to tell him what his words meant to her. Hopefully he already knew.

Jonathan was just arriving as Joyce went back in the main entrance. "Mom. Is he—"

"He's okay. He's okay," she said again, reassuring him. "We got to him in time." Maybe some other time she could tell Jonathan about the thing that had been in Will's mouth, about the fact that he had stopped breathing and they had to bring him back … but for now they were all better off if she was the only one with those images in her nightmares. "He's sleeping now, but we can sit with him."

Nancy stepped up next to Jonathan. "Did you see Barbara?"

Joyce's eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry."

To her credit, Nancy took it well. Her face twisted with pain, but she nodded. "I'm glad Will is okay. Did you get back to the school?"

"No. We came straight here. That was you in the house, wasn't it?" she asked Jonathan.

He nodded. "We were trying to kill the thing."

"You wounded it, and its blood led us to Will, but then it was gone." They all looked at each other in horror. "You don't think it went after the kids, do you?"

Before Joyce could think what to do, she saw the Wheelers' station wagon pull up. The three boys piled out of it, looking shocked and exhausted. Karen Wheeler waved at Joyce and went off to look for a parking space, while the boys came up to Joyce and the others.

"Mrs. Byers, is Will okay?" Dustin asked.

"We think he's going to be fine." The absence of Eleven, and the naked pain in Mike's face, told Joyce too much and not enough. "Did the lab come?"

Lucas nodded. "They came. And then the demogorgon came, too, and it mowed them down. Their guns didn't matter." He looked sympathetically at Mike. "But Eleven did."

"She's … gone?"

"Just disappeared," Dustin confirmed. "Like she never existed."

"She did too exist!" Mike shouted at him. "She existed, and she still does, and she's out there somewhere, and I'm going to find her."

"Hey. Kid." Hopper had come up in time to hear Mike's outburst. "Sometimes when people go out of our lives, they do it for a reason."

"There was no reason! There was no reason why the lab found us there, either. Do you think I'm stupid?"

Mike rushed inside, the other boys following him. Nancy gave them all an apologetic glance and went, too. Jonathan hesitated, but Joyce put a hand on his arm. "Go wait with Will. I'll be up in a minute."

When they were all gone, she looked at Hopper, whose face confirmed everything Mike had said. "You told them where the kids were?"

"It was the only way. They were never going to let us go. They were going to kill me—they said so. And then you would have been next, or they'd have done to you what they did to Terry Ives, and I— that was not going to happen. So I figured, I give them the girl back, and we go get Will, and then we go after the girl."

"And now she's gone."

"Yeah." But his eyes were looking at something over Joyce's head, and he wondered what he was guessing, or what he had already worked out, that she didn't know. But Will was what mattered right now, and she needed to get back to him.

"You coming?"

"In a minute."


	28. Right Now

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Right Now"

_Make future plans, don't dream about yesterday_

_C'mon turn, turn this thing around_

_Right now_

_It's your tomorrow_

\- _Van Halen_

Will slept on and on, and Joyce was terrified of what it would be like when he woke up. What he'd been through, alone there in that nightmare world, would have to change him somehow, and that was bad enough, but she could handle that. The worst part, the scariest question, was how long his heart had been stopped, how long he'd gone without oxygen. Would he still be her Will? She would love him no matter what, but she would never forgive herself, if he'd lost part of who he was to that thing, for not having been there sooner. If only she'd remembered the axe and chopped through the wall, she kept thinking, watching his pale face. He had known her, there in that darkened library, at least he had known her. That had to be a good sign, right?

She wanted to ask the doctors, but they were not being forthcoming with any information. It was all 'wait and see when he wakes up'. Joyce supposed she got it—she couldn't imagine Hawkins Lab had told the local doctors about the Upside Down, so whatever story they had told probably left the doctors with unanswered questions and suspicions. Still, she would have liked more … anything. Anything but this interminable waiting.

Leaving Jonathan with Will for the moment, she went into the waiting room. All three of the boys jumped up.

"Will?" Mike asked, in the tone of someone who was grasping at the last possible straw to hold on to.

"Still sleeping." Joyce glanced at Karen and Ted. "Do you suppose I could ask you a favor? The doctors think it would help Will if he had some familiar things with him—crayons, paper, some of his tapes, that kind of thing—but I don't want to leave him. Just in case. I don't want to leave him ever again," she added, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes.

Karen got to her feet, looking relieved to have a task. "Of course. Whatever we can do."

Ted was slower, but no less willing. "We'll be back as soon as we can. Your house locked?"

Joyce shook her head.

"All right." They left, with a quick hug for Mike and a squeeze of Nancy's shoulder. No one had told the Wheelers about the Upside Down, but whatever Hawkins Lab had told them while looking for the children had let them know about Nancy's friend Barbara.

The girl was holding up well, but Joyce could see anger in her. Anger at herself, at the lab, at … the universe. She hoped Nancy could turn that anger in the right direction. The third boy, the long-haired teenager Steve, was hovering around, clearly wanting to help, but out of his depth. Joyce sympathized. These were hard times to care for someone.

As soon as the Wheelers were gone, Hopper drew everyone else together in the center of the room, and they told their stories. Nancy's was terse, quick, and to the point; Hopper's much the same, although Joyce believed he had left out a few things.

Mike seemed to think so, too. He added very little to the boys' portion of the story, letting Dustin and Lucas go over how cool Eleven had been and how there had been blood everywhere. They talked a big game now, but Joyce had to believe at the time they must have been terrified.

"What do we do now?" Mike asked at last. "Just … go back to our lives like nothing ever happened?" His tone said he thought that sounded stupid.

"Yeah, kid," Hopper told him. "Trust me when I tell you I know how that sounds, like nothing can ever be normal again. And no one's saying it won't take a while. But … you have to go back to school, and clean your room, and do your chores, and run your—what is it? D&D?"

"What's the point?"

"That's what you have to figure out."

Mike rolled his eyes and returned to his seat. Hopper watched him, his eyes troubled, then turned away. Slowly everyone else found a seat as well, letting the day's exhaustion take over. Joyce waited for the Wheelers to get back and took the box they brought—a careful, thoughtful selection; Karen Wheeler was a good mom, if oblivious—back to Will's room.

At last—at last, at last—Will woke up. Blinking slowly, shifting his head on the pillow like it was heavy, but his eyes were open.

Joyce saw them, her boy's beautiful eyes, with a rush of joy. "Hey! Hi, sweetheart." She reached to brush the hair off his forehead, and was rewarded with his sleepy smile, the smile of a thousand midnight wakings when he was a toddler.

"Where … where am I?" he asked, and for a moment she hoped maybe he could forget. But then, what he had been through, the recovery, would be that much harder if he didn't remember it.

"You're home," Jonathan told him. "You're home now. You're safe."

Will's eyes had moved to his brother's face, his own lighting up. "Jonathan!"

"Yeah, it's me, buddy. We missed you. We really missed you." A tear rolled down Jonathan's face. If Joyce hadn't been too happy to cry, she would have at how much her boys loved each other. If she never did another good thing in her life, she had given them each other, and she was so proud of that.

Will caught sight of the bandage around Jonathan's hand, from where he had cut himself to draw the creature out with his own blood. "Are you okay?"

"What, this? It's just a cut. It's nothing. You're worried about my hand."

Joyce and Jonathan both laughed at that, in joy, because it was so Will to worry about someone else, even in his own extremity. He was back, he was safe, and he was still himself, still their Will.

Jonathan reached for the box. "Oh, hey, we, uh, we brought you some stuff. So you don't get bored in here." He rifled through the box and found what he was looking for—he had brought it from his car while they waited. "I made you a new mix tape. There's some stuff on there I think you really might like."

Will took it and smiled at his brother, and they all clung together for a good long while before Joyce remembered they weren't the only ones who wanted to see Will.

"Hey," she said. "You up for seeing some friends? Mike and Lucas and Dustin are here. Is it okay if I let them come in? Not too much?"

"No, not too much."

"Okay." She nodded at Jonathan, who got up and left the room.

"Mom?" Will whispered.

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"Do they—Mike and them—do they … know?"

She was glad he had asked, because she needed to talk to him about this before he started asking the wrong people questions. "Yeah, they know. They know—all of it, and have their own stuff to tell you, and so do Jonathan and I and Mike's sister, and Hopper."

"The Chief?"

"Uh-huh." She had forgotten how little Will knew of Hopper and vice versa. She hoped that would change now, that Hopper could become more of the person he used to be. "But no one else, okay? You can't talk about what happened to you with anyone but us. Do you understand?"

He nodded, his eyes big in his pale little face.

The door opened behind her, and Joyce got out of the way as the boys burst in. "Byers!"

"Now, be careful," she said, as Mike ran to Will and hugged him, putting his head down on Will's chest, and Lucas piled on his stomach, and then Dustin forced them both to the side so he could have his turn. "Be careful," she said again, but she was speaking to the air, because the boys couldn't hear her.

Coming in behind the boys, Jonathan said, "Guys, guys, go easy on him."

But the smile on Will's face, the way he did his best to hug back even though he was too weak to move much, was well worth how exhausting the boisterousness must be. Joyce stepped back, letting the boys talk.

Lucas and Dustin took turns.

"You won't believe what happened when you were gone, man," Lucas told him.

"It was mental!"

"We had a funeral."

"And Jennifer Hayes was crying—"

"And Troy peed himself."

"In front of the whole school!"

You had to love boys. They got right to the important parts.

Then Will started to cough. Just a cough, but it was enough to dampen the enthusiasm of the room, the boys watching him silently until he was done, remembering that while they had been having exciting times together, Will had been suffering alone.

Mike was the first to recover, reaching out to touch Will lightly on the shoulder. "You okay?"

"It got me. The demogorgon." His voice and eyes were clear and direct.

"We know," Mike told him. "It's okay—it's dead. We've made a new friend, she stopped it. She saved us. But she's gone now."

"Her name's Eleven," Dustin added.

"Like the number?"

Lucas shrugged. "Well, we call her El for short."

"She's basically a wizard."

"She has super powers," Lucas whispered.

"More like a Yoda," Mike corrected.

"She flipped a van with her mind, and—"

Then all three of the boys were talking at once. Will seemed to understand them, which was more than Joyce could do, and she knew the whole story.

Behind Jonathan, she saw Nancy, saw the smile fade from Nancy's face as she moved from happiness for her brother to the certain knowledge that there would be no happy ending for her friend, no reunion in a hospital room or anywhere else. Joyce's heart went out to her, but now wasn't the time.

For now, she would watch Will and send the boys out when he was too tired, and turn her focus to keeping him safe and getting him well.


	29. Monday, Monday

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Monday, Monday"

_Monday, Monday, can't trust that day_

_Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way_

_Oh Monday mornin', you gave me no warnin' of what was to be_

\- _The Mamas and the Papas_

Hopper had to admit, getting back to the daily grind had been something of an anti-climax. As far as the rest of Hawkins knew, there had been a gas explosion at the school, and something weird had happened to one of Joyce Byers' kids. The first was surprising, the second less so—although general scuttlebutt seemed to register some surprise that it hadn't been Jonathan to go missing, instead of Will. But all in all, things went back to business as usual faster than Hopper would have imagined possible.

He tried to talk to Larry Kline, the mayor, about Hawkins Lab, but was shut down pretty hard and fast, leading him to believe Kline knew more about what they did there than he was saying—or that he knew enough to know he didn't want to know any more.

The lab seemed to continue its normal operations without a hitch, which gave Hopper some concern. With Brenner's death at the hands of the 'demogorgon', Hopper's deal with them might well be null and void, and where did that leave Will and the Byers family? Will's extended stay in the hospital, as well as the time Joyce had taken off work and the advances on her salary, couldn't have been easy on their finances.

He called the lab at least once a day, leaving messages with anyone they would transfer him to, until finally they stopped transferring him at all and just hung up the phone when he identified himself.

"Chief." Flo was in his doorway as he put the phone down for the fifth time this week. "Someone here to see you."

"Somone have a name?"

"He says you'll know what it's about."

He glared at her in proxy. Why would he know what— Then he looked at the phone that his hand was still resting on. Well, he'd better damned well know what this was about. "Show him in, Flo. And—" His voice stopped her just before she disappeared around the door. "Thanks."

Her answering smile told him he should probably appreciate her more. He'd have to work on that.

She showed in an older man with graying hair wearing a rumpled sportcoat, no tie. Hopper got to his feet.

"Chief Hopper?"

"This is my office, so … yeah."

The man gave a small smile at that. "Dr. Sam Owens. I believe we had a mutual acquaintance, now sadly no longer with us."

Hopper waited until Flo had closed the door. "You here in response to my calls?"

Owens gestured at the chair opposite Hopper's desk. "You mind?" At Hopper's shake of the head, he plopped down in the chair with a muffled groan. "I'm here because I just inherited Brenner's mess, and that includes you. We have some unfinished business."

"The girl's gone. Just like Brenner."

"Yes. We know." Owens sighed heavily. "Probably for the best, poor girl. No one needs any reminders of his … research. But the boy's still here. How's he doing?"

"All right. He could use some real help."

"And he'll get it."

There was something about Owens, about how normal he was and how tired he seemed, that made the promise seem real. Hopper resumed his chair. "What kind of help are we talking? Because the hospital bills, the lost income …"

"Yes. We know all that." From the inside pocket of his sportcoat, Owens took a check. He slid it across the desk to Hopper.

It was generous. Not ridiculous, but … enough. "This'll buy a lot of mac and cheese."

"I hope so. It was regrettable, how that was handled. We hope you'll convey that to Mrs. Byers."

"Some reason you can't tell her yourself?"

"After the video of her interview with Brenner?" Owens chuckled. "I think she'd run me off with a shotgun if I came near the place. And I wouldn't blame her."

He had a point, Hopper had to admit. "And the kid's medical care? You'll take care of that, too?"

Owens nodded. "If you can convince her to bring him to the lab, we'll run some tests."

"I'll do my best. Last thing: the gate. What are you doing about it?"

"Studying it. Trying to get it closed. Burning off all those vine things. No one wants a repeat of what happened here, Chief. Not you, not us. All right?" Owens got to his feet. "I know you and your people have been treated badly by my people, but it's my job now, and I hope we can start off with, if not trust, at least a cautious lack of distrust."

Hopper rose, too, reaching out to shake Owens' hand. "You be straight with me, I'll be straight with you."

"Can't ask for more than that."

You couldn't ask for more than that, Hopper reflected—but would he get it? Owens seemed normal and trustworthy enough, but they were smart enough they wouldn't send someone with an obvious agenda.

Well, he'd just have to wait and see, and keep his eyes open in the meantime.


	30. Stayin' Alive

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Stayin' Alive"

_You know it's alright, it's okay_

_I'll live to see another day_

\- _The Bee Gees_

"I don't know about this, Hop." Joyce kept her voice low. Will had just gotten home from school and he was having a snack in the kitchen while Joyce and Hopper conferred outside, despite the snow and the cold.

"I don't see what other choice you have," he pointed out. "Hawkins Hospital doesn't have the first clue what happened to him. Hawkins Lab knows all about it. They're the best people to monitor him and make sure he's well again."

Joyce didn't entirely like the way those keen blue eyes were studying her. Hopper had always been able to read her too easily, and she didn't want him to see her concern for Will. Yes, because he had been missing and she was going to go a long time before she felt comfortable when he wasn't with her … but also because of the cough he couldn't quite hide, which didn't seem to be getting better, and the occasional faraway look on his face like he was seeing things no one else did, and the sounds from the bathroom like he was coughing something up. Will seemed to think he was concealing all of it from her, but she had half an ear on his whereabouts all the time, and a new sensitivity to any movement he made. Hopper was right, she had no choice but to take Will to Hawkins Lab and trust them to find what was wrong with him and fix it … but she didn't have to like it.

"What if they try to—take him?" she asked. "Like they did Jane."

"He's not an infant, Joyce. And if they'd wanted him, they would have gotten him out of the Upside Down and no one would have known anything about it. Taking him now would be pretty awkward."

"Maybe." It was good logic, but Joyce didn't trust those people to be logical.

"Joyce."

"It's fine, Hop, we'll go. But they better be one hundred percent on the up and up." She glared at him before heading into the house to get Will. "Hey, sweetie, you ready?"

"I thought you said we didn't have to go." He looked scared, and she didn't blame him.

"Just this once, just to make sure. Okay? For me?" She ruffled his hair. "Humor your mom. We worry, you know. Moms."

Will tried to smile, and she hated that she had to remind him of what he'd been through when he just wanted to get his life back to normal. "Okay."

They went outside where Hopper was waiting for them. He crushed his cigarette under his boot. "Hey, kid."

"Hi."

"How's school?"

Will forced a smile, and started telling Hopper about science class. Joyce listened as they climbed into Hopper's car, remembering that not so long ago Will wouldn't have had to pretend to be excited about school. She hoped he got that back, at least—something to look forward to. The boys were starting D&D sessions back up soon, too, so maybe that would make Will feel like life was back to what it had been.

She resisted the urge to hug him, pat his back, ruffle his hair, or in any other way satisfy herself that he was still here. He'd been good about that, but she knew it was starting to annoy him.

As they got closer to Hawkins Lab, though, Will reached out and took her hand, holding it tightly. He was trembling. Joyce held his small, cold hand in both of hers, wanting to give him some of her courage but feeling pretty short on it herself.

Hopper pulled into a parking spot and killed the engine, turning to Will. "Look, kid. No one's saying this is going to be a lot of fun, but it won't last too long and then what do you say we go have dinner at McDonald's? My treat."

"Okay."

"And don't worry, okay? I'm not going to let anything happen to you, and if they get past me your mom's going to be right there, and no one's going to mess with her." Hopper smiled at Joyce over Will's head. "The doctor's scared of her."

Will actually laughed at that. "Really?"

"Really."

They got out of the truck and went inside. The nurse seemed nice. She was young and friendly and put Will at ease talking about some science fiction movie that was about to come out. Joyce would have thought he'd had enough of science fiction, but apparently not.

The doctor came in then, introducing himself to Joyce and Will. He was an older man in wrinkled clothes like he'd been working long hours. Good. He should be.

"With your permission," he said, "we're going to run some scans."

"Mom?"

Joyce studied this Dr. Owens. Hopper was right, she had to trust—at least a little bit. "It's okay, Will. How long, Doctor?"

"Half an hour. And I'll be with him the whole time."

"Okay, Will?"

She could tell he didn't want to say okay, but he did, and he went with the doctor, but his swift, fearful backward glance at her broke Joyce's heart.

She didn't have much time to dwell on it, though, before another man, this one brisk and businesslike in a suit, came into the room, carrying a stack of papers.

"Mrs. Byers? I'm afraid there's some paperwork we need you to fill out."

"Medical records?"

"Yes, and confidentiality forms." He started laying them out on the table. There were an awful lot of them.

"How many?" Joyce demanded.

"Just the necessary forms to ensure that nothing … untoward is leaked to the press."

"Untoward?" she echoed, outraged. Who did they think they were?

Hopper grabbed her arm before she could get any further. "Leave the forms, we'll look them over," he said, and the guy in the suit hurried out of the room.

"Untoward, Hop. Untoward! Like their confidentiality matters more than what happened to my boy, more than what they did to that little girl."

"It does, to them. Sign the forms, Joyce. Take the money and the medical care. Let me worry about Hawkins Lab, all right?"

She looked at him, weighing her options. On the one hand, she was done letting someone else take care of her. On the other hand, her priority was Will's safety and health, and if these people could help her restore that, it was the least they could to do make up for what had happened. "All right," she said reluctantly. "For now."

Hopper nodded, looking out the window as the snowflakes started to fall again. "For now," he agreed.


	31. Rescue Me

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Rescue Me"

_'Cause I'm lonely_

_And I'm blue_

_I need you_

_And your love, too_

_C'mon and rescue me_

\- _Fontella Bass_

"Another strange kid? Come on, Phil, people are seeing things," Hopper said firmly. "Just tell them there's nothing in the woods and let it go."

Phil frowned. "I don't know, Chief. That kid the Walsh boy said broke his arm … We never found her."

"She never existed. The Walsh kid was out there messing around, doing stuff he didn't want his mother to know about, and he made something up to keep from getting in trouble. If my mom had called the cops every time I lied to her—"

"Yeah. Okay. I guess you're right, Chief. Hey, don't forget the party." Phil backed out of the office and closed the door.

As soon as the door was closed, Hopper reached into a drawer and got out his map, marking the new site. She was circling town, afraid to come too close. She must be freezing. And starving.

He'd been hearing reports of a strange kid out in the woods for a couple of weeks now, and he was increasingly convinced it had to be Eleven. The kids had said she disappeared, but they had never seen a body, so they assumed she'd gone into the Upside Down. Mike had been pestering him about it, wanting him to get Hawkins Lab to re-open the gate and look for her, and Hopper had talked him down. If Mike thought she was dead, it would be easier for him to move on—and harder for Hawkins Lab to find her if she was really out there somewhere.

Hopper made his way through the office holiday party, grabbing a Tupperware full of treats, and then ducked out into the cold. He wished he could give her some hot food, something more nourishing—but he had to find her first, and then he had to get her to trust him. She was a smart kid, she had probably figured out that he'd traded her location for the ability to go get Will as soon as Hawkins Lab showed up at the school. She'd likely be skittish around him—or anyone.

She would trust Joyce, he was sure, but he was reluctant to tell Joyce Eleven had survived. He told himself it was to protect Joyce, to allow her time to focus on Will's recovery … but he knew it was more than that, and worse, that he was being selfish, that he wanted to save and protect Eleven all on his own. Something about her big brown eyes, the shaved head … If Sara had lived …

He cleared his throat, climbing into the car and lighting a cigarette. This wasn't about Sara, he told himself firmly. This was about Eleven.

In the woods, he put the goodies from the party and a package of Eggos into a box he'd placed there, closing it tightly so animals couldn't get at it. If Phil's report was to be believed, she was around here somewhere.

He wanted to linger, but she wasn't going to come out if he was around.

Making his way back to the woods, he had just reached the car when he heard a sound behind him. He turned—and there she was.

He took off his hat instinctively. "Hey."

"Hey."

"You … all right?"

She nodded solemnly, but he could see her shivering. After a moment, she said, "Mike?"

"Yeah, he's fine."

"Can we … go?"

Hopper cleared his throat. "That's … complicated. Why don't we get you someplace warm and we can talk about it."

There was a pause while she considered that idea, and whether she found him trustworthy, and at last she nodded again.

He had already considered where he would take her if he found her, but he hadn't had time to get it ready. His granddad's old cabin was still filled with boxes of crap that his mother had left there when his granddad died, and Hopper had never bothered doing anything with any of it. Looking at it now from Eleven's perspective—well, what did she know? She'd seen Mike's house, and Will's, but beyond that she didn't know anything about how people lived. Maybe to her this was a palace. At least, Hopper hoped she would come to see it that way.

Dropping his coat on the floor, he said to her, "My granddad used to live here. Long time ago."

Jesus, he hadn't even thought about the cobwebs. What kind of a place was this to bring a little girl? He should take her to Joyce.

But he didn't want to. He wanted—he wanted this for himself. He wanted to save Eleven, to keep her safe, to give her the life she'd never had.

As she walked slowly through the cabin, he added, "I mainly just use it for storage now. Lot o' history here." He picked up a box he had forgotten he'd left here, a flowered box labeled "Sara", moving it to the bottom of a pile. "So, uh … What do you think?"

Eleven turned to look at him, startled, as if it had never occurred to her that it might matter what she thought.

"It's a work in progress," Hopper added apologetically. "It's … uh, takes a little imagination, but … You know, once we fix it up, it's gonna be nice. Real nice." Waiting for a reaction, for something, he finished, "This is your new home."

Her eyes were so big in her pale little face. She repeated the word. "Home."

"Great. You okay?"

Eleven nodded. "Mike?"

"Yeah." Why was he so reluctant to talk to her about other people? "Let's … uh, let's get started cleaning this up, okay? Then we'll talk."

It took a few minutes to get into the routine, but soon Eleven was moving boxes and Hopper was using an old broom to sweep cobwebs down off the ceiling.

"So, here's the thing, kid. They—Hawkins Lab—they think you're dead. And we want them to keep thinking that, because if they knew you were alive, they'd come for you. Right?"

"Right."

"So … I can keep you safe, and I can keep this secret, and you can stay here and no one will find you. But if we start telling other people where you are … Well, Mike would tell Will. And Will would tell his mom and his brother, and they would end up telling Lucas and Dustin, and—and we would all be in danger. Do you see what I mean?"

She put the box she was carrying down in a corner, looking at the floor and scuffing her foot against it. "I see." Then she looked up at him, the full force of her big brown eyes trained right on him, and said, "How long?"

He hoped to hell she couldn't read minds, because he didn't have a damned clue … and he didn't really want to. As long as he had her here, safe, he could make up for having betrayed her before, he could have another chance, he could be—he could be someone's dad again. He couldn't give that up. "Soon."

Fortunately for him, she hadn't grown up with real parents. Any of the other kids would have known "soon" for the evasion it was, but she didn't. She accepted it, and him, at face value. "Soon." But she wasn't happy. She was leaning against a ladder, half-sitting, and was looking at him like she wanted to ask more.

"Yeah." He looked for a way to cheer her up—and to distract her from any further questions—and found it in a couple of dusty boxes by the window. He set up the turntable and the receiver and dug through the box of records until he found his favorite. Jim Croce. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah." He grinned at her, happy to be able to share this with her. Showing her the album, he tapped on the top of it. "All right, this— This is music." He took the record out of the sleeve and placed it gently on the turntable.

Eleven jumped as the music filled the room. Had she never heard music before? Wow. He was glad he was the one to introduce her to it. Hopper snapped his fingers to the beat, bobbing to it, letting it flow through him. When was the last time he had really listened to music, really felt it inside him? It had been a long damned time.

He let it fill him, dancing along. Then he looked up and saw Eleven frowning at him as though she thought he had lost his mind. Maybe he had.

"All right. Let's get to work."

And they did. By the end of the day, they had the place turned into somewhere a kid could live, someplace she could call home. Someplace they could both call home. He wasn't sure if he had fully convinced her about his taste in music yet … but that could come later.


	32. Cherish

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Cherish"

_You don't know how many times_

_I've wished that I had told you_

_You don't know how many times_

_I've wished that I could hold you_

\- _The Association_

The bell jangled above the door and Joyce looked up instinctively. In the months since Will's disappearance, she had not yet gotten past worrying that something terrible was hanging over their heads, and she still startled at the least thing. Of course, it didn't help that Will was still coughing, still thin and pale and not sleeping well. None of them were. Something about knowing what lay on the other side of reality was hard to get past.

Still … Will was better than he had been, and his treatments at Hawkins Lab were going okay. The doctors there assured her everything was fine, and she was trying to believe them. She was trying not to see poor Eleven's scared little face every time someone from the lab spoke to her, but it wasn't easy.

To Joyce's relief, the person coming through the door was completely normal and not at all connected to anything that had happened. Little cheerful Bob Newby from high school, who had taken to coming in on his breaks from Radio Shack to make sure she was okay.

They hadn't talked a lot since high school, mostly shy hellos in the street until she went into Radio Shack at Christmas to get Will's Atari, but his concern touched her.

"Hi, Joyce."

"Hi, Bob. How's business over there at Radio Shack?"

"Cruising right along, one cable at a time." He smiled.

Joyce smiled, too, although she wasn't sure why everything needed so many cables all of a sudden. The Atari she had gotten Will for Christmas—with a lot of help from Bob—had been a real challenge to hook up, Joyce and Jonathan and Will all on the floor with the manual, arguing and plugging and unplugging things.

"How are you today?" Bob asked. His eyes were on her, gentle and kind, like he really saw her and really cared how she was. That was a rare sentiment in her experience.

"Tired. But good."

"Will's feeling good? Back in the swing of things at school?"

"Yeah. He and his friends are trying to reach—China," she said quickly. They really were trying to reach Eleven, wherever she had gone, but of course, you couldn't say that.

Bob shook his head, smiling. "China. Holy cow. Nice to go there sometime, don't you think? Or … New York, or even Chicago."

"It would be." Truthfully, Joyce had never given much thought to travel, or any kind of life outside of Hawkins. She thought she would be afraid to go somewhere new. Especially now, after what she'd seen.

"Or … maybe even just to that new Chinese place out near the highway."

"Sure. If you can't go to China you can …" Slowly Joyce's words faded as she recognized the hopeful, hesitant, almost frightened look in Bob's eyes. "Oh."

"I mean, if you'd rather not, I'd understand," he said hastily.

Joyce couldn't remember the last time a man had asked her out on a date. She hadn't been interested in so long, with the boys to raise, and she'd been such a mess no one would have looked at her twice, anyway. When she'd been with Lonnie, he had never asked. He'd just assumed she wanted to go wherever he wanted to go. Come to think of it, Hopper had never asked, either. Back in high school he would pull up beside her in his car—or his mom's car—open the door, and say, "Want a ride?" She usually had.

But this—Bob wanted her to want to go out with him. It mattered to him what she wanted.

She had thought, what with spending all that time at Hawkins Lab with Will, and everything they had been through, that maybe she and Hopper would … Would what, though? Hopper had been weird lately, jumpy and standoffish. He clearly wasn't ready for anything serious, and she had her boys. Which meant she should say no to Bob, too, she told herself—but she wasn't sure she wanted to. He was sweet. And thoughtful. And he liked to tell her little jokes. Dumb ones, really, but they made her laugh, and she needed to laugh.

"I … That sounds nice," she said, making up her mind, and the smile that lit up Bob's face made it more than worth the risk. She couldn't remember the last time someone other than her sons was that happy to be spending time with her. "I don't know if I've ever had Chinese food. What if I don't like it?"

"Then we can go out for ice cream after," Bob said, looking at her sideways to see if that was too much. "Everybody likes ice cream."

Joyce smiled. "They do, don't they?"

"So I'll see you Friday night? I can pick you up here if you're working."

She didn't really want the boys to see her coming home from a date, so she was glad he had suggested doing it this way. "I am, so that's a good idea."

"Great." His grin widened until it took over his whole face. "Great! I can't tell you how long I— I mean, I can't wait."

"Me, either."

And as the door jangled again when Bob left, she found it was true—she really couldn't wait. What did you know. Maybe this would be a better year than last year after all.


	33. The Love Boat

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"The Love Boat"

_Love, life's sweetest reward_

_Let it flow, it floats back to you_

\- _The Love Boat_

Joyce paced the kitchen floor. Back and forth, practicing what she would say. In a million years, she had never expected to have this conversation with her boys, but she couldn't keep hiding it from them, either. Jonathan, at least, was getting suspicious—and Will just looked at her with those big eyes in that pale face that still wasn't regaining its color, even months after his experiences. No, it was time to tell them, even though she fully expected they weren't going to take it well. She had never expected to have a boyfriend—a boyfriend, at her age!—to tell them about, and she was sure they had no idea that was where she had been all those evenings recently. No, this was going to be awkward, no getting around it.

They came in the door talking animatedly, singing scraps of some new song. Joyce felt she should probably know what the song was, but that was the thing the two of them shared, and she didn't want to intrude on it.

"Hey, Mom," Jonathan said, dropping his bag on the kitchen table. He looked at her more closely, and frowned. "You okay?"

"Oh, sure! I'm fine. I just … Can you sit down, boys? Or do you want to get something to eat first?"

"Mom?" Will asked. "What's going on?"

"Nothing! Nothing, sweetheart. It's just—something I need to talk to you both about. Oh, this is a disaster. I knew it would be."

"Okay. Just calm down, have a seat." Jonathan put a hand on her shoulder and gently urged her into a chair. Next thing she knew her cigarettes were in front of her, and a hot cup of coffee. Here he was, taking care of her again. Maybe she shouldn't do this. Maybe she should break things off with Bob so she could focus on her boys.

But even as she thought about it, she pictured his sweet smile and his gentle eyes. She could practically hear his deep warm chuckle and feel the careful way he cupped her elbow or placed his fingertips at the small of her back to lead her into a room. The way he made her feel safe, and cared for, and trusted.

She couldn't give that up, not now. Not even for them.

"I've been seeing someone," she said, not having intended to blurt it out like that but unable to stop herself.

The boys shared a look, and Will giggled, which was not at all the reaction Joyce had expected. "The guy from Radio Shack, right?"

She looked from one boy to the other in shock. "H-How did you know that?"

"Oh, he always smiles at me when we go in and tells me to say hi to you."

"And you got that we were dating from that?"

"You'd have to see his face. It gets all funny and weird."

Well, now she'd have to get Bob to make the face for her.

"It's okay, Mom," Jonathan told her.

"Are you sure?"

He wasn't sure, she could tell, but he was trying, for her sake. He always did try for the sake of the people he cared about. She loved that about him and wished he would stand up for himself more, all at the same time.

"Yeah. He seems like a nice guy."

"He is. He really is. I … want you guys to meet him. Okay?"

They looked at each other again, appearing to have talked it over already and resigned themselves to it. "Okay," they said at the same time.

"Wow. I … did not expect this to go that well."

"You weren't exactly subtle, Mom," Jonathan said, giving her a gentle pat on the head. "All those late nights? You never work that late."

"I guess not. I sure can't put one over on the two of you. How'd I get so lucky to have two such smart boys? So—you're both okay with Bob being around sometimes?"

"He's not going to, like, move in, is he?" Will asked, wrinkling his nose.

"No, honey! Absolutely not. Just come over sometimes. Or maybe we'll all go out to dinner."

"At the Chinese place?"

"Sure." She didn't want to know how they knew that was where she and Bob had gone on several of their dates. Hawkins really was such a small town. It occurred to her she probably ought to tell Hopper about Bob, too, since he undoubtedly already knew. Not that she owed Jim Hopper any explanation about her life—but they were friends now. At least, they were when he wasn't being standoffish and weird and hiding himself away in his grandfather's old hunting cabin. "You know what Bob likes? Movies. Maybe we can make movie night a regular thing."

Jonathan stood up abruptly, muttering something about homework. He grabbed his bag off the table and went to his room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Joyce looked guiltily at Will. "Too much?"

"Maybe. He'll get over it."

"You have a good day at school?" She got up and started getting him something to eat. He was still too thin. She wanted to see him putting some meat on his bones, growing a little faster.

"Fine." He dug around in his backpack, pulling out papers and books. "They call me Zombie Boy, did you know that?"

Stupid kids. "Well, that's kind of a cool name, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I guess it could be worse." He picked up a pencil and started doing math.

"You need any help?" It was a standard joke, since Will's math ability far surpassed hers and had since he was about eight.

"I got it, Mom, thanks." He filled in a couple of problems as Joyce cut up carrots for him. She put the plate down next to his math book, and Will looked up. "Mom?"

"Yeah, honey?"

"I'm glad. About you and the guy from Radio Shack."

"Bob."

"Bob, right. You deserve to be happy."

Touched, she smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "You make me happy, you know."

"I know. I love you, Mom."

"I love you, too, sweetheart." Happier than she'd been in quite a while, Joyce went into her room and started getting dressed for her shift at work.


	34. I Never Quite Got Back

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"I Never Quite Got Back"

_My dream is right, reality is wrong_

_'Cause I'm still with you where my heart's concerned_

_From where we were, there's no return_

_…_

_I'm still out there in that world you took me to_

\- _Sylvia_

"Will! Will." Joyce shook his arm, lightly at first, then harder.

He didn't move, or look at her, or indicate in any way that he had heard her or felt her touch.

Joyce held him, looking for some sign of recognition, some response. The staring eyes, the half-opened mouth, the tension throughout his body—something was very wrong. She shook him again. "Will!"

And then he was back, looking at her wildly and with terror in his eyes. "Mom? Oh, Mom!" He threw himself into her arms, shaking.

"Will, what on earth—?" She held him close, tighter and tighter, as if she could hold him hard enough to keep him safe forever.

"I was there. You know. _There_."

"The Upside Down?"

Will nodded against her shoulder. "I was just standing here and then—everything changed, and I can't get out."

She didn't miss the change in tense. "Has this happened before?" He went still in her arms, and she could feel him getting ready to lie. Holding him at arms' length, Joyce looked at him closely. "It has, hasn't it? How long has this been going on?"

"All the time," he whispered. "Ever since I—since I got back."

"And you never told me?"

He flinched at the tone in her voice, his eyes welling with tears, and Joyce pulled him close again.

"Never mind that. Have you told the people at Hawkins Lab?"

"No. I thought if I told them, they might—"

He didn't have to finish. That's what Joyce thought, too. "And it's not getting any better?"

"Worse."

Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. What had these people done to her boy? "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to make you some hot cocoa, and then I'm going to call Hopper, and we're going to talk about what we can do to help you. Is that all right?"

Will nodded, his arms tightening around her. "But … not Bob, okay?"

"Of course not." Joyce hadn't told Bob anything other than the usual story, that Will had been lost in the woods and given up for dead.

She made the cocoa and saw Will curled up on the couch in front of the TV watching _The Facts of Life_, although she didn't think he was paying attention, judging by the way his face didn't change when the laugh track came on. Then she went to the phone, dialing the familiar number of the police station. When Flo answered, she said, as she always did, "It's Joyce Byers. Is he in?"

"I'll put him through." Flo never sounded enthusiastic about it, though. Joyce knew they all saw her as a substandard mother, and a hysteric, whose regular calls to the Chief were bad for her and bad for him and just bad all around. She also knew they thought there was more to the relationship between herself and Hopper than there was. None of it mattered. Hop knew her, and that was all she needed.

He answered the phone, sounding distracted. "Chief Hopper."

"Hop, it's Joyce. I need to talk to you."

"Can it wait?"

She glanced at Will, who was staring into his untouched cocoa. "Not too long. It's a … new development. Or—well, it's not new, but I just found out about it." They tried not to talk too openly on the phone, never knowing who might be listening.

There was a pause. "All right. I'll come out later, but I can't stay long."

"Thanks, Hopper."

"Yep." And the line went dead. Joyce went to join Will on the couch and let him beat her at Space Invaders, glad to see a smile appear on his face after the third round.

Hopper showed up just as she and Will were sitting down to Hamburger Helper, Jonathan working late tonight. "Hey, Hop. You want some?"

He looked at the dinner table as though he had forgotten something important. "No, I'm good. But I have to go. What's this new development?"

Joyce looked at Will, who looked back at her, his eyes huge in his pale face. Clearly he wasn't going to tell Hop. "Will's been having … I don't know what you'd call them. Fits?"

"Seizures?" Hop asked, sitting down next to Will and looking at him intently.

"Not like that, no. Just—he says the world goes away and he's back in that place, in the Upside Down."

"That's not uncommon when someone's been through a trauma like that, to relive it. I've seen it a lot in guys I came back from Vietnam with."

"No," Will said, softly but with certainty. "Not reliving. There. Really there. I can reach out and touch that stuff in the air."

Hopper stared at him. "Crap."

"So what do we do? I can't take him to the lab, we can't tell them this. They'll—they'll take him away or something, use him for experiments."

Eleven's name hung unspoken in the air. Hopper glanced at his watch for some reason, then he cleared his throat. "Yeah, I agree. We'll … let me look into it. Maybe there's a specialist somewhere, someone who understands trauma." He reached out and touched Will's shoulder. "Okay, kid?"

"Okay."

"Good. You hang in there." Hop got to his feet. "I've gotta go."

"All right. Hop?"

He stopped in the doorway.

"Everything okay? You seem—" She didn't know how to describe it, but it felt off.

"Yeah, everything's fine." And he was gone, leaving Joyce and Will to try to pretend everything was normal.


	35. Break It to Me Gently

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Break It to Me Gently"

_Break it to me gently_

_Let me down the easy way_

\- Juice Newton_  
_

Eleven had already gone to bed by the time Hopper worked up the courage to have the talk they needed to have. He'd been trying to figure out how to approach it all night, but it never seemed to be the right time.

"Hey, kid," he called now.

The springs of the bed creaked as she got up and came to the door, opening it enough to poke her head out.

"Come on out, I have to talk to you."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise—he usually was a stickler for bedtime—but she came out into the main room in her plaid pajamas and stood waiting to see what he had to say. The habit of silence was still deeply ingrained in her. Maybe more than ever now that she had spent months living essentially alone in the cabin.

"I, uh … I have to go out of town for a few days."

The eyebrows went up again, and he thought he could see some fear in the widening of her eyes.

"It's only a few days. I'll leave plenty of food, and you'll be fine."

"Where?"

"I … have to go to Chicago."

"Chicago," Eleven repeated.

"Yeah." He dug out the atlas, flipping it open to the relevant page. She drew closer, although she carefully didn't touch him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the page. "Hawkins is right about here, and Chicago is there. So I'll drive from here to there, stay over for the night, have the appointment I need to have the next day, and drive back. Three days, or a little less."

But she had been struck by part of his explanation. "Appointment? Doctor?"

"No! I mean, yes, but not me." Hopper hadn't been sure he wanted to tell her where he was going and why, but now he didn't feel like he had much of a choice. "It's Will. You remember him?"

"Yes." She said it like he was some kind of an idiot, which he probably was. How could she forget Will after she'd gone into the Upside Down to find him?

"He's having … spells, I guess. Where he sees the—that place. Like he's there, only he's not."

Eleven shivered, and he reached to put his arm around her, but she stepped aside.

"That ever happen to you?" Hopper turned to look at her. "Hey, really. You can tell me."

"No." She shook her head.

"Good. All right, then. So we're taking Will to see a specialist, a doctor trained in a certain kind of medicine, to see why he's not getting healthier. You see why I have to go. Joyce—Mrs. Byers—she needs someone with her."

Slowly, Eleven nodded. Then she said, "Mike."

"Mike couldn't go, he's just a kid. And what does he know about doctors?" Hopper knew too much about doctors, more than he'd ever wanted to. But he didn't want to tell Eleven about any of that, and he was glad she didn't ask.

"No, me. To stay. With Mike." She cleared her throat and put the sentence together more carefully. "I could stay with Mike, while you're gone."

"Oh. No. Definitely not."

It was like a thundercloud came down over her face. "Why?"

"Because Hawkins Lab would like nothing more than to get their hands on you. They're staying away from Mike and the others because they think—you're gone, and if they had any idea at all that you were—back, they wouldn't stop until they got it out of them. You think Mike could hold out if someone like that Brenner guy was asking him questions? Because you know they wouldn't be gentle."

He was being harsher than he needed to, but panic filled him every time she suggested going out into the world. He couldn't lose her, too. She was … everything he had.

Eleven's face crumpled, and she fought to hold back her tears. "I miss him."

"Hey, I know you do. I want you to be able to see him, too," Hopper told her. "And as soon as it's safe, you will. I promise."

"When—when will that be?"

"I don't know. If Will can get better and we can stop having to go to the lab all the time …" This part he wasn't lying about. As long as he and Joyce and Will were regular visitors over there, no one in Will's circle could know anything about Eleven.

"So … after Chicago?"

"I hope so. I really do." Joyce's worry about Will was bad enough, but Hopper was worried about him, too, about his paleness and his lack of growth. The other boys were all shooting up, but Will seemed frozen at the same place he was when he disappeared. "Okay? You going to be all right while I'm gone?"

She looked at him, thinking it over, then she nodded. "Okay."

"Good. Now you should get to bed."

Eleven started to return to her bedroom, then stopped and turned to look at him. "Mike's not okay."

So she'd been hunting the kid in her mind again. "No." Mike had been fighting, and his grades were slipping. Missing Eleven was doing a number on the kid, which Hopper genuinely felt bad about. Much as he wanted to keep her to himself, he'd have thought about telling Mike something, anything, if he had thought it would be safe for her. But it wasn't yet—and what he didn't tell her was that he wondered if it ever would be. "Will's good for Mike. He's the only one who gets him."

"I know."

"So we cure Will, Mike gets better, we can let you see him. Deal?"

"Deal." She gave him one of her rare smiles and disappeared into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. He heard the springs creak as she climbed back into bed.

Eleven. Mike. Will. Hopper wanted to heal them all, just as he had wanted to heal Sara, but again it all felt like it was just out of his grasp, and he was afraid if he made the wrong move he would lose every one of them. And maybe himself.

Staring at the closed bedroom door, he was as afraid as he had ever been in his life.


	36. Waiting for a Girl Like You

_Thank you for reading! Be well!_

* * *

"Waiting for a Girl Like You"

_Sometimes I don't know what I will find_

_I only know it's a matter of time_

\- _Foreigner_

The drive back from Chicago was as quiet as the ride to Chicago had been lively. On the way there, they had sung along to all of Will's favorite weird songs, some of which Hopper thought he might actually like, and played the license plate game, and Hopper had told Will a few carefully chosen stories about himself and Joyce in high school, while Joyce laughed and protested and filled in details he'd forgotten.

But on the way home, Will stared out the window at the rain until he fell asleep, Joyce curled up on her seat, and Hopper set his mind on auto-pilot and did his best to drive without thinking.

The specialist had been no help. Worse, it had become clear as they left his office that none of the three of them had expected him to be helpful. So they couldn't even be said to have been fooling themselves—if anything, they had been fooling each other.

Hopper's heart hurt for Will. The kid never complained. He endured whatever he was going through without a word, he did his best to keep his spirits up for his mom and his brother and his friends, and he tried as hard as he could to move forward with his life even while he was still stuck in the nightmare. Hopper had always respected strength, but the strength he generally recognized was more like Lucas's—in your face and loud and bristling. In Will, Hopper saw another kind of strength, quiet but firm, something very much like what Joyce had, and he admired that strength even while not entirely understanding it.

Glancing at Joyce, he could see that she was suffering, but she also had one eye on the back seat, ready to sit up and be cheerful for Will's sake as soon as there was any sign he was waking up.

He hunted around for something to say that would take everyone's mind off the fact that now they had no choice but to go to Hawkins Lab about Will's episodes and try to trust those people to be straight with them—and he found nothing.

Joyce shifted in her seat, and glanced over to see him watching her. "Look at the road, Hop."

"Yeah. Sure." Without thinking, he reached for her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. "It's going to be okay."

"Sure it is."

"You want some music?"

"Not right now. Will's sleeping."

"Okay."

"Hey, Hop, can I tell you something?"

"Yeah." He hoped by now she knew she could tell him anything. Of course, the secret about Eleven was still weighing on him, and if he had to guess, he'd bet Joyce knew he was hiding something from her … but if he could tell anyone about Eleven, it would be Joyce, and that had to count for something, didn't it?

"Hopper?" Joyce asked, and he shook off his thoughts and nodded.

"Yeah. You were going to tell me something. What's going on?"

"I'm, uh … Well, you remember Bob Newby?"

"From high school? Bob the Brain? Man, that takes me back." He grinned. Poor Bob, they really had taken shameless advantage of him. "He works at that electronics place now, right?"

"Radio Shack."

"Yeah, that's the one. What about him?"

"Well … I'm kind of … I'm dating him, Hop."

He looked at her, startled, then back at the road just in time to keep the car from drifting out of the lane. "Bob Newby? You and Bob Newby?"

"Yeah. Me and Bob Newby," she snapped. "You got something to say?"

"No, no, nothing," Hopper corrected himself hastily. Watching the road, he couldn't help thinking about the way Bob had looked at Joyce in high school. A lot of guys had looked at her that way—but only Bob had grown up to go out with her. Lucky Bob. "Good for him. He must feel ten feet tall."

Joyce looked at him with narrowed eyes, clearly wondering if that was a jab at Bob's fairly modest height. He'd meant it sincerely, though, and she must have seen that. "Thank you, Hopper."

"Hey. You're happy, right? He makes you happy?"

She got a faraway look, as if she was picturing Bob. "He really does."

Hopper swallowed against the hot jealousy that rose in him automatically. Whatever might have been between them once, whatever could have been if things were different, his guardianship of Eleven took precedence over anything else. She needed him to keep her safe, needed him more than Joyce did. "Hey," he said again, gruffly. "You're a good mom. You've raised those boys right. You—you deserve a chance to be happy, a chance that's just for you."

"Thanks." She reached for his hand, and he took it off the steering wheel to hold hers, driving with his left. "What about you? Are you …" She seemed to think better of the word 'happy'. "Are you okay?"

Hopper nodded. "I am. Better than okay," he added after some thought, deciding that was all right to admit to.

"Good. Hey, Hop?"

"Hm?"

"Thank you, for all this. For helping me with this. I … I'm glad you came back to Hawkins."

He squeezed her hand. "Me, too." And, for probably the first time, he really was.


	37. Little Lies

"Little Lies"

_If I could turn the page_

_In time then I'd rearrange_

_Just a day or two_

\- _Fleetwood Mac_

Back at home, Hopper sat with Eleven over a pair of gooey, chocolatey, Eggo ice cream extravaganzas. He wasn't sure he understood her obsession with the frozen waffles, but it made it easy to indulge her.

She had been happy to see him return, and her smile had warmed him all through. He'd be willing to do a lot more than build Eggo and ice cream towers for her in order to see that smile. He wondered if she knew that.

They laughed over something she'd seen on TV while he was gone, and Hopper told her about Chicago, the streets and the people and some of the crazy outfits he'd seen. Things he never would have noticed before but he paid attention to now so he could tell her about them.

Then her laughter faded, and she looked up at him, her eyes big and serious. "How is Will?"

He didn't want to tell her.

She understood his silence too well. "Oh. I'm … sorry."

"Yeah, me, too. Now we have to tell the lab people about him, and … Well, we'd rather not." She knew why, better than anyone.

They were silent, the Eggos cloying and sticky in his mouth now instead of gooey and delicious.

"How is Will's mom?" Eleven asked.

"Worried. Scared. About the same." He thought of mentioning Bob, but he really didn't want to get into any of that. Dating, or Bob the Brain, or high school, or Joyce, or … any of it. Nope.

"She's brave," Eleven said after giving the matter some serious thought.

Hopper got up and took the mostly empty plates to the sink. "She is. But she's lucky, too. She got Will back."

He thought of Sara, tears springing to his eyes suddenly the way they did sometimes when he was least expecting it. Turning on the tap, he hoped the running water would cover any telltale sounds while he fought the pain back.

But Eleven wasn't paying attention to him; her thoughts were moving in an entirely different direction. "Do you—do you think I had a mother?"

Hopper nearly dropped the plate, the question was so out of the blue. He could have kicked himself for not having expected it—of course she would wonder about herself, where she'd come from. If he'd thought about it beforehand, he could have planned what to say, what to tell her. Because telling her about Terry Ives, about the way her mother sat all day watching TV because her brain had been locked against her by the very people who had taken her child from her, was unthinkable. It would hurt Eleven, it would anger her … and it would make her want to go and find her mother, which Hopper didn't think she was ready for.

For that matter, he knew perfectly well that he wasn't ready for it.

"Everyone has a mother, kid," he told her gruffly.

"But …" She frowned, not able to put the question into words.

"But you were raised in the lab, and you think maybe you're different?"

"Yes."

"I doubt it." He drained the water from the sink, picking up a towel to dry the plates.

"Do you think … maybe I could find her?"

The question stabbed at him. Find her? No. He couldn't let her do that. He couldn't have her see what had happened to her mother. "I … No. You can't," he said before he could think better of it. "She's … she's dead."

There was silence, and then a very small "Oh."

God, he was a heel. But better to hurt her now and make it a clean cut than the heart-tearing truth. Terry Ives was never going to get better—she might as well be dead. It would have been kinder if the lab had killed her.

"Did … did Papa …" Eleven couldn't finish the sentence. Her entire life had been lived under the guidance of Brenner. No matter how angry she was, how much she had seen to convince her that he was a heartless bastard, her first instinct would be to trust him.

"I don't know, kid. I wish I could tell you more." He hoped to hell she wouldn't ask him how he knew, because he didn't have a good lie handy, and any part of the truth might lead her to check up on the story someday.

Putting the dishes away, he went to the TV. "You want to watch something?"

Eleven shook her head, very slowly.

"I'm sorry. I wish … I wish things were different." That, at least, was true.

"Me, too." She gave him an attempt at a smile. "I … think I'll go to bed."

"All right, kid. Sleep well."

She nodded, closing her bedroom door behind her, leaving him to stare bleakly at the TV screen. He hoped she would be able to get a good night's sleep, because he certainly wouldn't.


	38. Separate Ways

"Separate Ways"

_You know I still love you_

_Though we touched_

_And went our separate ways_

\- _Journey_

Hopper came out of the drugstore into the warmth of a summer evening. His bag was heavier than usual because he was bringing Eleven some treats—a coloring book and a big box of crayons and a couple of bags of candy. His own prescription load was down significantly since he'd brought her home, as was his beer consumption. He had kicked the hard alcohol almost entirely, not wanting her to see him drunk and maudlin. She'd been through enough without that.

He was feeling pretty good, walking down the street, when he recognized the couple in front of him—Joyce and Bob the Brain. Bob had his arm around Joyce's shoulders, and they looked … comfortable.

Hopper had known about them since he and Joyce had taken Will to the specialist, but he had managed to avoid actually seeing the couple together until just now, and he felt weird about it. Not that he and Joyce had ever talked about anything happening between them, but … it could have. And, regardless, he felt protective of her. Always had. Bob was a good guy, but was he good enough?

The question now was whether he said something to them or not. He was only a little way behind them, he could easily speed up and wish them a nice night. Would that be awkward, or would it be more awkward if he turned off without speaking to them and one of them saw him?

It occurred to him that if he sped up and spoke to Bob, it would tell Joyce he was happy for her. Maybe she deserved that. God knew she had never been happy with Lonnie, and the years after Lonnie left hadn't been easy, either, not to mention what she had been dealing with since Will's initial disappearance. She deserved what Bob had to offer—whole-souled devotion to her, and a sincere belief that there was no greater joy to be had in the world than dating Joyce Byers. Maybe there wasn't, Hopper conceded.

He sped up just enough to catch up with them. "Well, hey, look who it is. Hey, Joyce."

She was smiling as she turned her head to look at him, but there was a wariness in her eyes.

Hopper smiled, too, hoping to dispel the wariness, although he'd been told his smile could be disturbing, especially if he didn't mean it. "Bob, right? Bob from high school?"

Bob's smile was easy and genuine, not disturbing at all. He took his arm from around Joyce's shoulders to shake Hopper's hand. "Yeah, that's me. Bob Newby. Chief Hopper, it's nice to see you."

Well, Bob won that one. He had tried to put Bob in his place by going back to high school and Bob had reminded him in the friendliest possible terms that they were all grown up now. Point to Bob, Hopper thought ruefully. "You folks out for dinner?"

"We're thinking of taking in a movie. The kids are all excited about this _Ghostbusters_ film, but there's one out about a kid who does karate that looks pretty good, too—what do you think?"

Hopper hadn't seen a movie in years. He had only the faintest idea what _Ghostbusters _ was about, and wondered if anything with that title was a good idea for Joyce. But surely she knew what was good for her better than he did. "If the kids are into it, probably a good idea to see it," he said, giving Joyce a genuine smile. "Always good to know what those little guys are up to."

"That's a good point," Bob said enthusiastically. "Between you and me, it's a little uncomfortable with the boys sometimes. I know electronics, so that helps, but having a little more common ground could be a good idea. What do you think, Joyce?"

"I said I'm happy to see whatever." She seemed like it, too. "I kind of miss the days when Will wanted to see movies with me, so at least we'll be able to talk about this one if I see it."

"_Ghostbusters_ it is, then." Bob put his arm back around Joyce's shoulders. "We should hurry if we're going to get good seats."

"Well." Hopper felt uncomfortable now, not sure how to get out of the situation gracefully, since they had both mostly forgotten he was there. "Nice running into both of you. Enjoy your movie."

"'Night, Hop." Joyce's smile said she was glad he'd decided to be on his best behavior, making all the awkwardness worth it.

"Chief, good to see you," Bob said briskly. He steered Joyce in the direction of the movie theater, leaving Hopper standing on the sidewalk watching them go. He was feeling bereft and lonely until he felt the weight of the bag he carried and remembered that he, too, had someone to go home to.

Eleven must be lonely sitting at home, he thought with a pang of guilt. She'd have liked to go see a movie, too. He wondered if there was a way to manage it. In a disguise, maybe? But everyone would notice if he showed up with her and there would be questions, and even if Hawkins Lab didn't get wind of it children's services might. The idea of Eleven taken away from him turned his bones to ice. No, he couldn't risk that. Looking down at the bag, he thought maybe she needed something more than coloring books and candy. Maybe he'd drive through McDonald's and bring her home a Happy Meal.

Deep down was the uneasy knowledge that no Happy Meal could make up for friends and school and a normal life, and someday he was going to have to deal with that. But someday wasn't today, and he could wait before he shared her with the world … just a little longer.


	39. Watching the Detectives

"Watching the Detectives"

_You think you're alone until you realize you're in it_

_Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit_

\- _Elvis Costello_

Hopper pulled into his spot in front of the police station. Late again, damn it. He had meant to leave earlier this morning, part of an overall plan to come into work early so he could knock off early, so he could be home at a reasonable time now that the days were shortening and night closed in sooner. He hated to leave Eleven home alone in the dark. Not that she minded so much … but he did.

An already foul mood grew blacker when he saw who was waiting on the sidewalk for him. That crackpot who was soaking Barbara Holland's parents for every penny they had. If there was anything Hopper hated as much as people who let little kids die and lied about it, it was people who took money from grieving parents to chase impossible theories that they knew would never pan out.

"Good morning, Jim," the crackpot said.

Hopper rolled his eyes and walked past, hoping that if he didn't give the guy the attention he was looking for, he'd go away.

Of course, that tactic hadn't worked the last half-dozen times they'd been in this situation, so he shouldn't have been surprised when it didn't work today.

Crackpot followed him, calling his name again.

"Hold on a second. We need to talk," he said urgently, catching the door before Hopper could let it slam in his face.

"Get away from me," Hopper muttered. More to himself than to Crackpot, because he knew how ineffective it would be.

"Okay, no, I—"

"Get away from me." Louder, this time.

"You're really going to want to hear this."

"Get away from me!" Hopper sang it this time, really drawing it out.

Crackpot kept talking over Hopper's voice, his own rising in what sounded like desperation. "I only want five minutes!"

"Yeah? I want a date with Bo Derek. We all want something," Hopper snapped at him. They were in the office proper now, and Flo marched up and took the cigarette right out of Hopper's mouth, like she did every morning. So far that hadn't kept him from lighting another one, but she kept hoping, and he didn't mind. She was probably right, for that matter.

He shrugged off his jacket.

"This isn't a laughing matter, Jim," Crackpot assured him earnestly. "This is serious, okay?" he continued over Hopper's groan of disgust and irritation. "I've really got somethin' here, I'm tellin' you!"

"Mornin', Chief," Powell said brightly as Hopper passed his desk, and Phil chimed in with a greeting of his own. God, they were chipper. Didn't they have anything better to do than come to work and be cheery?

Of course they didn't, because as far as anyone knew, nothing ever happened in Hawkins, and that was the way Hopper wanted to keep it.

Catching sight of Crackpot behind him, Powell added, "Mornin', Murray!"

"Got any proof on your butt probin' aliens yet, Murray?" Phil asked. Powell cracked up at that one. It was about as clever as Phil got, Hopper reflected. And Crackpot did like his alien abduction story.

Hopper picked up a doughnut, sinking his teeth into the sweet icing. Before he could take more than the first bite, the doughnut disappeared from his hand the same way the cigarette had disappeared from his mouth, and Flo handed him an apple. A green apple. Like his morning wasn't already sour enough.

"I now believe there was, and may very well still be, a Russian spy presence in Hawkins," Crackpot said doggedly, ignoring Powell and Phil entirely.

"Russian spies?" Hopper said through his mouthful of doughnut. He picked up the coffee pot, pouring out caffeinated goodness—one of the few vices Flo didn't object to, maybe because it made him a marginally more decent human being. He couldn't help but laugh at the new theory. It was a good one. He still didn't like the crackpot, but he could be entertaining.

"Now, Murray, are the Russian spies in cahoots with the aliens?" Phil asked. "Or how do they fit in here? Because I'm confused."

Crackpot kept his eyes on Hopper and kept talking. "I'm talking multiple reports now. Multiple reports, okay? Of a Russian child in Hawkins."

Suddenly it seemed a lot less funny. Hopper swallowed his coffee and repeated, sharply, "A child? What are you talking about, a child?"

"A girl who may have psionic abilities."

Crap. Another reason Hopper hated crackpots like this, because you never knew what they were going to dig up that should have remained buried.

"Psionic?" Powell repeated.

"Psychic," Murray snapped.

"Hey, Chief, what about that girl that made that kid pee himelf?" Phil asked.

"That was a prank."

"What girl?" Murray asked.

Phil frowned. "Wasn't a prank! Kid comes in—"

Hopper talked over him, shushing him. "You've got five minutes," he told Murray, hating that he had to pretend to take this crackpot seriously for even one minute. "Not a second more."

In his office, he planted his feet on the desk to make sure Crackpot knew this wasn't a real interview.

Murray took a seat on the other side of the desk, resting his hands primly on his suitcase. "I talked to a Big Buy employee who said some little girl shattered the door with her mind."

Hopper kept his face blank, wishing Eleven had kept a lower profile. "I heard that story. Did you hear the one about the fat man with the beard who climbs down chimneys?"

Crackpot ignored his sarcasm. "Then last month a coworker of Ted Wheeler's claims some Russian girl with a shaved head was hiding in his basement. Ted now denies this."

Taking the bite of sour green apple from his mouth and chucking both bite and the apple it had come from into the wastebasket, Hopper swung his legs down off the desk. "Wow. That's a surprise." It was a little surprising that the Wheelers hadn't made more of their fifteen minutes of fame from having Hawkins Lab swarm their house … but Ted liked to fly under the radar, from what Hopper had seen, and Karen had her hands full with Mike.

"But it connects," Murray insisted.

"Enlighten me."

"This girl. She's some kind of a, of a Russian weapon, right? Barbara, she sees this girl, tries to help her perhaps, but before she can the Russians find them, take them …"

Hopper stuck another cigarette in his mouth, to take away the taste of green apple. "You're telling me that Barbara Holland was kidnapped by Russian spies?" He lit the cigarette, hoping to hide any hint of the memory of that poor little girl in that creepy library. God, he wished he thought Barbara was still alive in some gulag in Russia.

"Kidnapped," Murray repeated. "Killed …"

"Killed?"

"Don't you get it, Jim?"

"No."

"This has potentially international implications." Crackpot raised his voice. "I'm talking a full-on Russian invasion right here in Hawkins."

Hopper stared at him. If only this guy knew how much stranger the truth was. Of course, this guy was exactly the reason no one was ever going to find out the truth. He played with the paper in his typewriter, purposely making an annoying noise with it. "You have any proof of this girl? I mean, has anybody seen her, like, recently?"

To his relief, Crackpot shouted, "No! But these are separate sources—"

The phone rang, interrupting him, much to Hopper's relief. It was Flo with a message about rival pumpkin farmers messing with each other's crops. Ah, Hawkins at its best. It was almost a relief to be back to such bucolic police work.

He slammed the phone down, stubbing out his cigarette, and said, "Yeah, I'm sorry, I really hate to do this, but I gotta run. It's an emergency."

"You gave me five minutes," Murray protested.

Hopper grabbed his hat. "Yeah. Listen, I liked your alien theory a lot better. And you want my advice? Why don't you stop bleeding those people dry? And go home, huh?"

"Look, I am not bleeding anyone—"

Ignoring that for the lie it was, Hopper stepped a little closer. "Listen to me. Go home."

He hoped this time the guy would listen. Because one of these days, Hopper was going to throw him out the window.


	40. Happy Together

_"_Happy Together"

_Imagine me and you, I do_

_I think about you day and night, it's only right_

_To think about the girl you love and hold her tight_

_So happy together_

\- _The Turtles_

The Halloween costume had come together well, if Joyce did say so herself. Will and his friends were obsessed with these Ghostbusters, and Joyce wanted Will's homemade costume to look just as good as the ones his friends' parents had bought. She was almost done with the finishing touch, the patch, when the bell above the door jingled as someone came into the store.

She smiled at the approaching customer, who plucked a jack-o-lantern for trick-or-treating off the stack and carried it toward her. "Hey there."

"Hey."

"Would you happen to have these in any other colors?" he asked. "I'm not a big fan of orange."

Joyce pretended to think about that one, keeping a straight face with some difficulty. "Hm. I'll have to check in the back." She put the costume down, coming around the counter. She gave a backward glance at her customer. "You want to come with me, see for yourself?"

"I don't mind if I do."

Bob started kissing her as soon as she got the door closed, pushing her back against the shelves. Joyce put her arms around his neck, kissing him back. He wasn't as masculine as Hopper had been; he didn't have the moves Lonnie had been known for … but he was sweet, and he was passionate, and, where the others had always had something else on their minds, Bob was completely there. Completely hers. Joyce found that incredibly sexy.

He kissed her some more, moving her into a corner between two shelves so he could get as close to her as possible. Her knees weakening, Joyce flung a hand out to steady herself, knocking a couple of boxes off a shelf in the process.

She laughed, disentangling herself enough to reach for them. "You're gonna get me fired!"

"Well, that's my master plan: get you fired so I can hire you and we don't have to hide back here."

For that, she kissed him again. He started kissing her neck, which she liked, but not necessarily in the storage room in the middle of her shift.

"Bob."

"Mm."

"Bob. I have to get back to work."

He kissed her again, tightening his arms around her waist and holding her there. "I know, I'm sorry, I just—I can't stop thinking about you. It's crazy. I feel like a teenager."

"Me, too." She did. Not like the teenager she'd been, hiding how insecure she was and hanging out with Hopper and kids like him for protection, but like a real teenager, a happy one.

"You know, in high school, you didn't know who I was."

She hated when he reminded her of that. To think of all the time she'd wasted, when she could have been with someone as sweet and loving as he was all along. "Come on." Joyce pulled him closer and kissed him again. Bob got carried away again, and she repeated his name some more to remind him where they were, while he kept kissing her and saying "mm-hm" like he was about to stop. "I have to get back to work," she said again, louder this time, so he'd know she was really trying to mean it this time, much as she would have liked to just stay here in this closet kissing and laughing with him for the rest of her shift. Or the rest of the day.

Reluctantly, he let her go. "Okay."

"Go sell your—electronic thing-a-ma-jiggys, and I'll see you tonight for movie night."

"Jonathan's night to pick."

"Yes."

"Okay." He kissed her once more, but in good-bye this time, turning to walk away. Just as he reached the door, though, he turned back, lunging for her, stealing one last kiss to make it through the rest of the day. Or giving her one last kiss to make it through the rest of the day. Or both, Joyce thought happily. This relationship was about both of them, for the first time in her life. Maybe that was what made it feel so easy and good.

With a last few quick kisses, he turned to go for real this time, stopping at the door one last time as he noticed what he had pretended to come in here for perched cheekily on a shelf. "Hey, look," he said, pointing. "A green one."

The one and only green jack-o-lantern in the place. Joyce smiled.

Bob half-closed the door, then stuck his head back in. "Tell Jonathan not to pick anything scary. I hate scary movies."

Joyce nodded, although she had no intention of telling Jonathan any such thing, and kept smiling as Bob closed the door the rest of the way and left her alone there in the closet. How was it possible that she had lived this long and never known what fun it could be to be with someone, how much you could laugh and be happy and silly together? She knew the boys didn't really understand what she saw in Bob—Jonathan in particular—and she got that. From their perspective, he was just a kind of dumpy, dorky guy who worked in a Radio Shack. But they didn't see what she saw—the generous, kind heart, the open smiles, the constant concern for her thoughts and her needs and her welfare. She hoped someday they would.

In the meantime, she would look forward to movie night, one of the few things they all had in common … at least, when Jonathan wasn't showing his displeasure with her and Bob and the world in general by picking movies he knew they'd hate. She hoped tonight wouldn't be one of those nights.


	41. Only in My Dreams

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Only in My Dreams"

_No, only in my dreams_

_As real as it may seem_

_It was only in my dreams_

\- _Debbie Gibson_

Will looked dejected, coming out of the school toward Joyce's waiting car. He hated these appointments, the constant reminder that he wasn't the same as the other kids, and hated even more that they were always during the school day, pulling him away from his favorite things. Joyce had tried to get Hawkins Lab to reschedule, but they always gave her a very polite runaround before scheduling for the same time again. She thought they did it just to prove they could.

But she brightened up when she saw him anyway. She always did now—it was such a relief to look at his little face, to know he was still here, still with her. The principal had escorted him out, and now he opened the car door for Will and helped him in while Joyce went around to the driver's side.

"I should get Jonathan to teach you to drive," she told him cheerfully. "You'd like that." What did it matter that he was too young? Anything to put a smile on his face.

"I like my bike."

"Yeah, the bike's good, too. How were the guys today?"

Will shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

"Mike?"

"Mom, Mike's okay!"

The vehemence in his tone told her Mike still wasn't okay—he was still struggling with the loss of Eleven. Joyce wished more than anything she could tell Karen Wheeler what her son had been through, make the other woman understand, but that was impossible. The best she could do was suggest that Karen give Mike a break, and even that was hard to say now. It had been so long that Karen thought they should all be past it.

Driving down the road with this silent child where her chatterbox had been, Joyce glanced over at him. Will was leaning his head against the window, looking out. She thought about asking to buy his thoughts for a penny, but she didn't think she wanted to know.

"You feeling any better?" she ventured at last. "Will?"

He turned his head, as if she'd startled him. "Huh? Uh … yeah. Yeah. Sorry."

"Hey," she told him, "what'd we talk about, huh? You've got to stop it with the sorrys." After what he'd been through, Joyce didn't think he ever needed to apologize again, but he was so embarrassed by being the center of attention, so uncomfortable with the weight of everyone's worry on him.

"Sorry," Will said without thinking. "I mean—I mean, yeah. I know."

"Hey, listen, you know, there's nothing to be nervous about. You know, just tell 'em what you felt last night, what you saw. Hey, I'm gonna be there the whole time, so it's gonna be okay. Okay?" They had finally decided the lab needed to know about his episodes, and Joyce had been chilled to see how not-surprised Dr. Owens was.

"Okay." Will wasn't convinced, though, and he leaned his head against the window again, cutting off any further conversation.

Joyce was relieved to see Hopper already waiting for them when they pulled in. She felt better with him there. He was less emotional about all of this, and saw things more clearly than she did because of it.

"Hey, buddy," he said to Will as they got out of the car.

"Hey."

Joyce said "hey", too, and put her arm around Will's shoulder as they walked into the lab. They were known by this time, although that didn't make anyone noticeably friendly. Just faster, their badges already waiting for them.

As usual, the nurse weighed Will, took his blood pressure and some blood, taped some electrodes to the side of his head, and turned the machine on. Joyce wished she understood the machine, how it read what Will was thinking and translated it into the lines and peaks and valleys that came out on the paper. Then the nurse, in her chilly way, informed them that the doctor would be with them shortly. Without ever having changed expression, she shut the door behind her as she left. Another lab worker came in while they were waiting, but he ignored them, walking to the line of cupboards at the side of the room and busying himself there.

Joyce managed a smile, and Will tried to give her one in return, but it was a weak effort, at best.

Dr. Owens came in with Will's file already in his hand. His cheerful, easy manner should have been a relief after the clinical coldness of everything else here, but mostly it just felt strange, as if he'd been lifted from somewhere else and put down in this place where he didn't belong. "So, Will, how are ya? Mom. Pop. Let's take a look, see what's goin' on here." He took a seat on the stool next to Will.

They'd never quite managed to explain Hopper's relationship to Will to the doctor. Either that, or it amused him to refer to Hopper as "Pop". Joyce wasn't sure which.

Dr. Owens opened the file and started looking through it. "I see you shaved off a pound since we saw you last."

That worried Joyce. Will was too thin already. She started thinking of ways to convince him to pig out, food that would tempt him.

"Must be makin' room for all that Halloween candy?" the doctor asked, getting a small smile from Will. "What's your favorite candy? Desert island candy. If you had to pick one."

"I don't know."

"Come on. Life or death situation, what would you pick?" The doctor looked genuinely interested in Will's answer.

"I guess, uh …" Flailing, Will glanced at Joyce, who mouthed the name of his favorite at him. "Reece's Pieces?"

"Good call. Good—good call. I'm more of a Mounds guy, but I gotta say, peanut butter and chocolate—come on." He put the file up on the counter. "Hard to beat that. All right, so tell me what's going on with you. Tell me about this episode you had."

"Well, my friends were there, and, um, and then they just weren't, and I was back there again."

"In the Upside Down."

Will nodded.

"All right, so what happened next?"

"I heard this noise, and … and so I went outside, and … it was worse."

"How was it worse?"

"There was this storm."

"Okay. So how did you feel when you saw this storm?"

"I felt …" Will had to think about that one for a second. "Frozen."

"Heart racing?" the doctor asked.

"Just … frozen."

"Frozen, cold, frozen? Frozen to the touch?"

"No. Like how you feel when you're scared and you can't breathe or talk or, like, do anything."

Joyce hated that her beautiful son knew how that kind of fear felt.

"I felt, I felt this evil, like, like it was looking at me."

The doctor seemed to find that interesting. "It was evil. Well, what do you think the evil wanted?"

"To kill."

"To kill you?"

"Not me." Will turned his head to look at the doctor, and there was a chilling matter-of-factness in his voice when he finished, "Everyone else."

"Okay. Okay, well, that must have been scary."

Will nodded.

Dr. Owens got up off his stool. "Well, why don't we let you get dressed, get those things off your head, while I talk to your mom and pop, okay?" He nodded at the lab technician, who came over and started detaching the electrodes, while Joyce and Hopper followed the doctor to his office.

Will would get dressed and be led to the chairs outside the office while the doctor tried to make Joyce feel better. She wondered why they kept coming here, giving more information than they were getting, coming away with no help for her boy. In her secret heart, she was terrified that the reason the lab offered no help was because there was no help to offer—but it was a lot easier to be mad at them for their secrecy.

Once they were all seated, Dr. Owens said, "All right, I'm gonna be honest with you, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better."

"Worse?" Joyce frowned at him. "He's already had two episodes this month."

"He'll likely have more before the month is out. It's called the Anniversary Effect. We've seen this with soldiers. The anniversary of an event brings back traumatic memories, sort ofopens up the neurological floodgates, so to speak."

"So what does this mean for the kid?" Hopper asked. "He's gonna have more episodes, nightmares?"

"Yeah. That. Maybe some personality changes. He might get … irritable, might lash out."

"But what do we do when that happens?"

"Okay. Well, from what we know about post-traumatic stress—and we're still learning, okay? Just treat him normally. Be patient with him, don't pressure him to talk, just let him lead the way."

"So what you're saying is it's just going to get worse and worse and we're just supposed to pretend like it's not happening?"

"It sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but I assure you that is really the best thing you can do for him."

Joyce wanted to believe she was being told the truth—and Hopper's silence told her he agreed with at least some of what the doctor was saying, and she put trust in Hopper's instincts and knowledge—but she hated the very idea of letting this happen to Will, maybe losing more of who he had been, with no way to help him other than to pretend the problem wasn't happening.

The doctor took a deep breath, and spoke in a different tone, less of his careful folksiness. "Listen. I understand what you went through last year. I get it. But those people are gone. They're gone. Okay? So if we're gonna get through this, I need you to realize I'm on your side. I need you to trust me."

He seemed to be, with his honesty and his smiles and his reasonable explanations … but Joyce still didn't feel comfortable here, or with him, or at all.

She glanced at Hopper, whose expression didn't change. So, they didn't trust. That was just fine with Joyce. She paid lip service to the trust, said good-bye to the doctor, and stayed quiet until they'd collected Will and were in the parking lot, Will walking ahead of them, when it all came exploding out.

"'Trust me'?" she snapped. "Are you kidding me?"

"Yeah, I know," Hopper said unhappily. "But, you know, the university gives out a degree, this guy's got it. And, look, that post-traumatic stuff he's talkin' about, that stuff is real." He looked down at Joyce, putting a hand on her arm. "He's going to be okay. All right?"

She gave him a skeptical look.

"How's, uh, Bob the Brain?"

Joyce knew what he was doing, but she glared at him anyway. "Don't call him that."

"Sorry. Old habit." Hopper sounded unrepentant.

"He's good. We're good."

"Good. I'm happy for you. Really. Hey."

Joyce paused with the car door half open and looked at him over her shoulder.

"Things get worse, you call me first. You call me."

"Okay." She got into the car and looked over at Will. "Hey, what about some McDonald's?"

Once upon a time, that would have cheered Will right up. Today, all it got was a half smile.

"Chocolate shake?" she added, temptingly.

That got more of a real smile. "Hot fudge sundae?"

"Both? … Well, I suppose it is a special day. It's the day I finished your costume!"

"No way! All done?"

"All done." She smiled as she pulled out of the parking lot, glad to go back to real life where a Ghostbusters costume could actually make things better.


	42. Season of the Witch

_Thank you for reading! If this looks familiar, it's because there's been a bit of a shuffle - I realized I neglected to post Chapter 37, "Little Lies", so I've replaced that where it belongs and updated Chapters 38-42. Sorry about that! I'll try not to do that again.  
_

* * *

"Season of the Witch"

_And when I look in my window_

_So many different people to be_

_That it's strange, so strange_

\- _Donovan_

Halloween morning. Hopper felt guilty for how many late nights there had been—he tried to get home at a regularly scheduled time, he really did, but police work wasn't a regularly scheduled job—so he got up early and made French toast. The kid should have more home-cooked food, fewer TV dinners and meals out of a box, but with only him … And he didn't really remember how to stick to routines and get the food shopping done on time. For years now he had eaten at the diner, or picked up something on the way home, or skipped food entirely and lived on beer. Getting back into a routine was harder than he had imagined it would be.

Still, the French toast looked pretty good, if he said so himself. He'd been an okay cook, once upon a time, finding whatever he could make that Sara would want to eat, when the chemo had her sick to her stomach. A bite here and there was as good as gold.

He flipped it again, trying to concentrate on the perfect golden brown and not think about Sara, when a sound behind him made him turn around.

A specter stood there, white and floating. He yelled without thinking, before realizing it was Eleven in a sheet with holes cut out of it. "Oh, Jesus."

"Ghost," Eleven corrected, in her precise diction.

"Yeah, I see that."

As he carried the pan to the counter, she turned to follow him. "Halloween."

"Sure is." He portioned the French toast out onto the plates, next to the bacon. "But right now it's breakfast, okay? C'mon, let's eat." He grabbed his cup of coffee and balanced it in one hand while he picked up the plates.

Eleven didn't move, standing there and staring at him through the holes in the sheet. "They wouldn't see me," she pointed out.

"Who wouldn't see you?"

"The bad men."

He put the plates down on the table. "What are you talking about?" he asked as he took his seat.

"Trick. Or. Treat," she said, slowly, as though he was being particularly thick.

Apparently he was, because it had never occurred to him what she meant by all this with the sheet. "You want to go trick-or-treating?"

She nodded.

Panic flooded him. He couldn't let her go. Not now. They were so close to being safe. Just a little longer. He couldn't give her up yet.

Getting to his feet, Hopper said, "You know the rules." He caught her by the shoulders.

"Yes, but—"

"Yeah, so you know the answer."

"No, but, I don't—they wouldn't see me!"

He was propelling her backwards, away from the table, and he broke into her protests uncompromisingly. "Hey. I don't care." He kept going, talking over her. "I don't care, all right? You go out there, ghost or not, it's a risk. We don't take risks. All right? They're stupid. And?" He waited.

"We're not stupid!" Eleven snapped it at him.

"Exactly. Now you take that off, sit down, and eat. Your food's getting cold."

She shrugged the sheet off angrily, and sank into her seat, glaring at him. She was going to sulk over this, he could tell, and he couldn't entirely blame her. But he was right. He couldn't risk anyone else seeing her, knowing she was here.

Picking up the syrup, Hopper poured it for her, meaning to hold completely firm, but her angry, unhappy silence beat at him until he had to say something.

"All right, look. How 'bout … I get off early tonight and I buy us a bunch of candy and we can sit around and get fat, and we'll watch a scary movie together? How's that for compromise?"

"Co-compromise?" she echoed.

"C-o-m-promise. Com-promise. How 'bout that's your word for the day. Yeah? It's something that's like kinda in-between, it's like halfway happy."

"By 5-1-5?"

"5:15," he agreed. "Yeah. Sure."

She didn't like it, but she was wavering. "Promise?"

He looked her straight in the eye. "Yes. I promise."

There was a long moment while they looked at each other, and finally Eleven seemed to let it go. "Yes. Halfway happy." She picked up her fork and started to eat her breakfast. Hopper smiled and reached over to ruffle her short hair, getting a small smile in return.

Relief flooded him as he watched her pour yet more syrup on her French toast. Someday, he told himself, he would be ready to let her go out that door. Someday.

But not today.

* * *

Joyce rushed down the hall to Will's room. He was going to have to hurry if he was going to be ready on time. "Will? Come on, honey, up and at 'em." She rounded the corner, and stopped still when she saw his bed was empty.

"Will?"

She hurried back down the hall to the kitchen, trying not to panic, trying not to remember that other morning when he hadn't been there when she went to wake him.

"Jonathan?"

He was at the stove making breakfast, and he turned when she came into the kitchen. "Yeah?"

"Where's Will?"

"What?"

"Where's Will?"

"He's not in his room?"

"No!"

She was staring at him, wondering why he wasn't panicking, when she heard a sound. The bathroom door was closed and she pushed it open, relieved and somehow not relieved to see Will standing there. Something still felt wrong to her, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Will? What are you doing?"

He frowned. "Peeing?"

His voice sounded so normal, so Will, that she felt silly for having panicked. She shut the door, calling behind her, "Hurry up, let's get you ready to go."

They had their breakfast, quickly, and then she got the costume she had made for him and helped him put it on, zipping up the jumpsuit and handing him the backpack. A piece had come loose, and she lifted it, trying to see where it went. "You need some tape. Hold on."

While she was getting the tape, Joyce noticed a picture in the pile on his desk—a different kind of picture than he usually drew. Lots of black. A thing, spidery, with black spiky arms, and clouds rolling in over its head. She turned to him, the picture in her hand. "What's this?"

There was something in his face when he saw it, a shadow of some kind. But then it passed, and Joyce wondered if she had imagined it.

"Oh, nothing," Will said.

"Did you have another episode?"

"No, it's just, um, a sketch for a story I'm writing."

She wanted to believe him. She wanted their lives to be normal so that these things were all in his imagination and not shadows following him from another world. So she decided to believe him, just for today, and put the picture back on the desk.

"Come on, let's get some pictures."

"Mom! I thought you were in this big hurry!"

"So I could have enough time to take pictures. Come on, you look just like that Igor."

"Egon!"

"Right. Egon. Jonathan, we're ready!"

Jonathan grabbed his camera, and they made Will pose until he refused to do it anymore. This was probably the last year Will would wear a costume to school, the last year he'd wear one at all, and Joyce wanted to enjoy every minute.


	43. Bad Moon Rising

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Bad Moon Rising"

_I see a bad moon rising_

_I see trouble on the way_

_I see earthquakes and lightnin'_

_I see bad times today  
_

\- _Creedence Clearwater Revival_

Joyce couldn't get her mind off the picture on Will's desk. She kept going back to look at it. Sure, it could be a villain from a story, like he said, or from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign—but it didn't feel like that. It felt … menacing. As though she could feel the anger and Will's fear just by looking at the page.

She went to the phone, dialing the familiar number and dealing with the resignation in Flo's voice when she asked for him.

"This is Hopper."

"Hop?"

"Yeah, what is it, Joyce?"

He sounded wary. She supposed she couldn't blame him for that.

"I have something I need you to look at. Can you come out here? It won't take long."

There was a pause and she could hear papers shuffling around on his desk. At last, he said, "Okay. Hang on."

"Thanks, Hopper."

"Yep."

He showed up looking tired and frazzled. "I don't have a lot of time."

Joyce held up the picture. "I found this on Will's desk this morning."

She held her breath, hoping he would see what she had seen. Hopper took the picture and looked at it, really looked. Lonnie would have glanced at it briefly then told her she was imagining things. Hopper didn't do that—he never had.

"Okay, what am I looking at?" he asked at last.

"I don't know. I just—do you feel it? It's so … angry. And … come look at this." She led him to the porch, showing him what she had realized as she stared at the image. "Now look. At the picture, then at the yard."

Hopper did so, scowling at the drawing on the page, the long spiky black legs and the angry black head, and then at the yard, the clothesline that was reflected so accurately on the page.

"See?" Joyce asked after a moment. "It's an exact match."

He looked again, and this time he nodded. "Okay, I see it. But couldn't he have just used the back yard as a background for the story he was writing?"

"He could have, but he didn't. I think—Hop, I think he saw this. In one of his spells."

Hopper glanced down at her. "You're shivering. Let's go inside."

She followed him in, knowing that he was turning the problem over in his mind, deliberately. As he took a seat at her kitchen table, he sighed. "I think you're right. I think he saw this thing."

"Why would he lie to me?"

"He's a kid, Joyce."

"I mean, you—you heard him describe these episodes. It's not like he's describing a nightmare. He talks about them like they're real."

"Yeah, because they're not nightmares, they're flashbacks. I know a couple guys who have had these things, and it feels like you're … there. Like it's happening."

Joyce put the picture in front of him again. "Then what the hell is this?"

"Owens said it would get worse."

"That place!" she said in despair and frustration.

"Yeah, what do you want to do?" Hopper asked, getting up. "You want to take him back to Chicago?"

No, she didn't, but there had to be something. "Well, there's that guy in Boston that's supposed to be, like, the best—"

Hopper took the seat next to her. "Yeah, they're all a bunch of quacks. They'll all just tell you the same thing, just cost you more money." He tapped the ash off his cigarette in the ashtray, looking across kitchen, really considering the situation. "I think he's right. About trauma. He's right, we're comin' up on a year, you know. I think everybody's on edge. Me. You. Will most of all."

Joyce looked at him, wanting to believe this was all it was, the memories of last year, the secret fears hidden in Will's mind. She wished she thought so. But something about that picture … it didn't feel the same as the nightmares Will had suffered in the past year. There was a new something about it, something … ominous.

"We just gotta get through the next few weeks," Hopper went on, unaware of her skepticism. He looked her in the eye. "Nothing's going to go back to the way that it was. Not really. But it'll get better. In time."

Joyce didn't know what to say—nothing about this situation was good, and she felt … well, maybe it was the anniversary. Maybe this dread she was feeling came from remembering what had happened, and it would ease as they got through the next month. Maybe. She reached for the pack of cigarettes, finding it empty.

"Here," Hopper said gently, holding his out to her.

"Thank you." As she put it to her lips, she wondered how many times they had done this, shared a cigarette and their problems. How many times he had helped talk her through what was going on in her life. A lot. In high school, and in the past year. She took a drag and coughed, spitting out bits of tobacco. "Jesus, Hopper."

He laughed, ducking his head. "Brings back old times."

"What?"

"Well, sharin' my cigarettes between, uh—"

"Fifth and sixth period."

"Yeah. Under the steps. Mr. Cooper caught us that time, remember?" He imitated old Mr. Cooper's voice. "'Hey, assholes …'"

"We ran! We just ran." She couldn't help smiling, thinking of it. They'd thought their problems were so big, but really they'd had such a good time hanging out together. She laughed, looking at Hopper, whose eyes were on her, warm and tender in a way that at first touched her but then reminded her of why he was here. She looked at him, trying to hold back the tears that stung her eyes. "God, I want this to be over."

"I know." He reached for her hand. "It will be soon. I promise."

Joyce clung to his hand, and his promise, hoping he was right.


	44. Monster Mash

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Monster Mash"

_Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band_

_And my monster mash is the hit of the land_

\- _Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers_

Joyce had been reluctant when Bob first suggested he come over for Halloween. That had always been her thing with Will, his favorite holiday, when he could become one of the characters he loved. But much as she wanted to hold him close to her, especially now after everything, she knew he wasn't going to want her to trick-or-treat with him. They had compromised on Jonathan going, and she trusted Jonathan, but it wasn't the same as going herself. Having Bob with her while she waited would help keep her mind off the nameless fear that was growing within her that this nightmare wasn't over yet.

Bob arrived dressed up as a vampire. The most adorable, harmless vampire ever, she thought fondly, loving the way he was so unashamedly enthusiastic. He'd brought a video camera with him, as well, and for once both boys were genuinely interested, crowding around him as he explained how it worked.

"Will, we've got to get you ready," Joyce called, and he turned from the camera eagerly to put his Ghostbusters costume back on.

Joyce couldn't help but hover over him, wanting him to have fun but wanting him to be safe, not sure if she could really let him go. "Listen," she said softly as she put the backpack on him, "stay close to your brother. Okay? And—listen. Listen, listen." She turned him to face her, holding him by the arms, talking over his protests. "If you get a bad feeling, or anything, you just tell him to take you straight home. You promise?"

He gave her a thumbs up. "Okay."

It was clear he thought she was being ridiculous and over-protective, but she couldn't help saying "Promise?" again one more time because she remembered what it had been like when he didn't come home, and she could not go through that again.

She couldn't help calling out "Be safe" one more time as they left, either. When would she ever be rid of this chilly feeling that something else was going to happen? When could she watch her boys leave again without being so terribly afraid they weren't coming back?

Next to her, Bob spoke through his plastic vampire teeth in a ridiculous Dracula accent. "I hope it doesn't suck!"

Joyce gave a nervous smile, wanting to laugh with him but not able to. Not now. Not tonight.

He turned to her, chuckling, and put an arm around her shoulders as they closed the door. Joyce forced a more genuine smile.

Once they were alone, Bob looked at her—really looked at her, the way he did, making sure she was all right, and he could see she wasn't. "Hey. They're going to be okay."

"I know." Not for the first time, she wished she could tell him the truth. But how could she? Aside from the mountain of papers she had signed promising she wouldn't tell, he would never believe what had really happened last year.

"All right, how are we going to get your mind off them for a little while?" Bob cupped her face in his hands and rested his forehead against hers.

One of the things she liked about so much about him was that she knew that when he spoke like that, he really meant that he wanted to help her. Lonnie would have been all about sex to get her mind off things, and that was great and all, but it wasn't the right answer every time. And in the end even that had always really been about him. Bob cared about her and how she felt, not just physically but in every way, and Joyce had never known what that could be like before.

"I have just the thing. Come with me." Bob led her to the sofa, got her a glass of wine, and then went to the turntable to put on a record, letting sweet music fill the room. Used to men—and boys—who liked rock and roll, Joyce would never have thought of herself as a country music fan, but she was willing to try it for Bob. She smiled a little bit, watching Bob sway to the opening notes of "Islands in the Stream."

He reached out a hand, wanting her to come dance. Joyce protested, but Bob eventually got her off the couch and into his arms, dancing her around the living room, slow and gentle, his hand on her lower back so protective and safe.

"You playing Frankenstein to my Dracula?" he asked her. "Come on, you're stiff as a board. Relax."

"I'm sorry. It's …" She let the sentence trail off. He knew what it was, and what he didn't know she couldn't tell him.

Bob looked at her, studying her face, and she made a little gesture to indicate that she couldn't help it.

"He's fine. Okay? Jonathan's with him."

"I know." She clung to him, feeling him warm and solid, right there with her. "It's just … Every time he's away from me, it's like I, I can't … function." Burying her face in Bob's shoulder, she added, "It sounds silly, I know."

"No, it's not silly. It's not silly." They danced a few beats in silence, but she could feel Bob holding his breath until he took the plunge and asked, "What if we were to move out of Hawkins?" As she lifted her head off his shoulder to look at him, he clarified, "Together."

"What?"

He laughed. "Whoa, Nellie, right? It's just, I—I've been thinking about what you said, about how you've got all these memories here and you wish you had enough money to move. Well, my parents are selling their house in Maine. There's a Radio Shack nearby, I'm sure they'd take me on. We could just—"

Bob must have seen on her face how unbelievable the idea was to her—leave Hawkins? She had never considered it. Never dreamed of it—and his voice trailed off.

"My turn to be silly now," he said.

She stroked his hair. "Bob."

"No, it's fine. Wine makes me crazy."

"It's just so hard to explain. It's—" She thought about Hopper. Odd but inevitable that she should think of him at such a time. "This … this is not a normal family."

Bob considered that one for a moment. "It could be." He whispered it again, just to make sure she heard him. "It could be."

Joyce put her arms around his neck and held him close, moving with him.

The doorbell rang, followed by an impatient knocking, and Bob let her go, smiling at her. "Finally!" He put his vampire teeth back in, making claws with his hands. "Victims!"

Joyce watched him as he doled out candy with a liberal hand, making terrible jokes in the process, loving his generosity and his sweet spirit and his gentle heart. She was so lucky to have found this man. She wished she could be everything he deserved. Instead, she would have to settle for trying her best, and knowing it wasn't quite enough.


	45. It's My Party

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"It's My Party"

_It's my party and I'll cry if I want to_

_Cry if I want to, cry if I want to_

_You would cry too if it happened to you_

\- _Lesley Gore_

Hopper had spent the afternoon and evening deep in the woods, following the trail of gross, slimy, dying trees. He was finally coming out, dirty, tired, and discouraged by the dying, rotted vegetation where yesterday there had been healthy crops and the lack of any clear reason why, when he suddenly had the strong sensation that something was watching him. He had trained himself in Vietnam never to ignore that sensation—he had seen too many guys dismiss the feeling as nothing and then fall to a sniper's bullet. Stopping short, he trained the flashlight on the field, unsnapping his holster, his hand hovering near the butt of his gun.

Suddenly there was a sharp report, like a gunshot. Heart in his throat, Hopper turned … to see a little kid in a cowboy costume shooting a cap gun at him.

He took a step back, breathing a sigh of relief, the tension broken.

"You look scared," the kid taunted him.

"Yeah, you got me, kid."

The kid reached up high, pointing the gun straight up in the air and snapping off a few more shots.

"Happy Halloween," Hopper said grudgingly.

Then it hit him. Halloween. Oh, shit. He looked at his watch. He was in so much trouble. She would never speak to him again—and deservedly so. "Oh, shit, shit, shit," he chanted, like a mantra, like it would get him there faster or turn back time or somehow make it so that he didn't fail her again.

He got in the car, peeling out, the dust flying up under the wheels as he turned around. Only a few feet down the road, he remembered that he had promised her candy, and the stores would be closed. Glancing up, in the rearview mirror he saw the little kid standing there, a candy bucket dangling fom his hand, and he threw the truck into reverse, backing up until he was facing the kid once more.

The little cowboy turned to watch him, mildly interested, as if adults acting crazy was the way things usually happened. Hell, maybe it was. Who was Hopper to judge?

Leaning across the front seat, Hopper rolled down his window. "Hey, kid. Gimme some of that candy, would ya?"

Solemnly, the kid shook his head. "No way."

Awkwardly shifting in the seat, Hopper extracted his wallet, holding up a five dollar bill. "All right. How about now?"

There was a long pause, in which Hopper was sure the kid was going to soak him for a twenty, at least, and then finally he nodded, equally solemnly. Taking his earnings and handing over his loot, he observed, "You can buy a lot of candy for five dollars."

"Not when the stores are closed." Not bothering to roll up the window, Hopper sped down the road, hoping she would understand, but not able to come up with a single convincing reason why she should.

As soon as he was in range, he started beeping the code at her, hoping she would forgive him if he just tried hard enough.

At the cabin, he gave the code knock. Then he gave it again.

Silence.

He waited, cursing himself for all kinds of a fool, as near tears as he had been in a long time. Since Eleven had come into his life, really. She was the best thing to happen to him since Sara had died, and now he had acted like she wasn't important, like she didn't matter as much as his stupid job, as much as some guy's dead pumpkins. Just because he was curious. He had wanted to know, to find the answers. And he had screwed everything up. Just like he always did.

Pushing back the tears with some effort, he called out, "Hey, kid, open up, all right, look, I—I know I'm late. I got candy here, all right? I got all the good stuff." He put his hand on the door and listened, but there was nothing. Angry at himself, he pounded his hand against the doorframe. "Please will you open the door! I'm gonna freeze to death out here."

Finally he heard the clicks of the locks opening. He went in, but she had opened the locks with her mind, and was firmly barricaded inside her room with the TV. He could see the blue flicker of some old movie beneath the door.

Hopper crossed the room. "Hey, kid, open up, would ya? I got, uh, stuck somewhere, and I lost track of time." That was the way it had always been—an interesting case, a puzzle to solve, and he forgot everything. How many of Diane's dinners had he been late for? How many nights had she called him crying, needing him to come home and help with the baby, and he had been too caught up to be there? They had fought over it so many times. Trying to learn from that, he offered Eleven the one thing he had never been man enough to offer Diane. "And I'm sorry," he said quietly through the door, meaning it. Leaving it at that, no explanations, no defenses. "El? Could you please open the door? El?"

There was no response, and he gave up, carrying the bucket of candy to the couch.

"All right," he said, loud enough to be heard through the door, sitting down, "I'm just going to be out here by myself, eating all this candy. I'm gonna get fat. It's very unhealthy to leave me out here. I could have a heart attack or something. But … you know, you do what you want." He popped a chocolate bar into his mouth. It tasted like dust, and he flicked the wrapper across the room in disgust. Apparently he wasn't going to be able to fix this, at least not tonight.


	46. It Don't Come Easy

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"It Don't Come Easy"

_I don't ask for much, I only want your trust_

_And you know it don't come easy_

\- _Ringo Starr_

The house was still silent when Hoppe got up the next morning. Well, this wasn't going to continue. Yeah, he had screwed up, but there wasn't going to be any sulking. He was more than willing to apologize, but she had to talk to him.

In the kitchen, he built a three-layer Eggo sundae, with Hershey's Kisses and jelly beans and Reece's Pieces liberally scattered over it and stuck between the layers, setting it on the table before going to get her up.

He tapped on her door. "Rise and shine." When there was no response, he pushed the door open, seeing her huddled under her quilts with her back to him. "So that's it, huh? You're still not talking?"

Nothing.

"All right." He sighed in exasperation, turning away from the door. Then he turned back, playing his hole card. "I guess I'm just gonna have to, uh, enjoy this triple decker Eggo extravaganza on my own."

He hadn't even made it back to the table before her door closed—but only briefly, while she got dressed. She didn't speak when she came out, but she did come willingly to the table and sit down across from him. Hopper figured that was good enough for a start, and he stuck a fork and knife into the Eggo stack, cutting it in half.

As El picked up half an Eggo on her fork, Hopper licked whipped cream off the knife. Eggos weren't his favorite, but whipped cream was good stuff. He exaggerated his noises of enjoyment to try to get a rise out of her. "Good, right? You know the great thing about it? It's only eight thousand calories."

Silence. Not even a hint of a smile.

Cutting another wedge of Eggo, Hopper looked down, noticing the cord from the TV snaking across the floor and into El's room. That could mean that she had stayed up late watching movies, but it was more likely to mean that she'd used it as white noise to go looking for Mike in her mind.

Looking up, he saw her watching him, and he was sure of it. "You visited him again last night?"

Silence. Her eyes dropped, unable to meet his. After a moment, she spoke softly. "He says he needs me."

Hopper didn't doubt that he did. What Mike had been through—meeting Eleven, taking care of her, having her save his life not once but twice, and then losing her entirely—had been devastating for the kid. "You want me to go check on him?" He had done so, carefully, a couple of times, but Mike blamed him for Eleven's loss, and fair enough.

She shook her head.

"I know that you miss him, all right? But—it's too dangerous."

El looked up at him, her wide brown eyes worried and sad.

"You're the last thing he needs right now." The words felt inadequate. Worse, they felt harsh. Against his better judgement, Hopper added, "You're gonna see him. Soon." Just to see her smile, he kept going, making the kind of promises he had told himself not to make—not until he had a plan for dealing with the lab, which he was still far from having at this point. "And not just in that head of yours. You're gonna see him in real life. I feel like I'm making progress with these people."

She was too smart for him, though. She saw right through him. Leaning across the table, she said deliberately, "Friends. Don't. Lie."

"What?"

"You say 'soon' on Day 21. You say 'soon' on Day 205. You now say 'soon' on Day 326?"

He had known she was counting the days, but he hadn't known she was memorizing his words. He had meant to give her hope, to suggest the possibility, not to promise. He saw now that she had taken his words for promises, unused to the way parents sometimes made vague statements like 'soon' to push their kids' expectations off indefinitely. So he did what he did when he felt guilty—he went on the attack. "What is this, you're, like, counting the days now? Like you're some kind of prisoner?"

El would not be deflected. "When is 'soon'?" she demanded.

Hopper didn't know what to say. He didn't know when 'soon' would be—just that it wasn't now. "'Soon' is when … it's not dangerous anymore," he told her, fiddling with the badge that he was trying, and failing, to pin on his shirt. His hands were shaking, his heart pounding. He couldn't lose her. He couldn't risk losing her. She was everything he had, his last chance.

"When?" Her voice was like a hammer's blow.

Hopper looked at her, then back at the badge. He couldn't bring himself to lie to her, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth, either. He shrugged. "I don't know."

"On Day 500?"

"I don't know."

"On Day 600?" Her voice was rising, and now so did his.

"I don't know!"

"Day 700? On Day 800?"

"Jesus!" he shouted, while Eleven shouted back "I need to see him!"

With her mind, she shoved the plate across the table, whipped cream and Eggos spattering his lap. He stood up, looking down at his uniform. "Shit!" He didn't like to swear in front of her, but she had pissed him off, so he looked at her and said it again. "Shit!"

Eleven was on her feet as well. "Friends. Don't. Lie!" She stalked off into her room, closing the door with a contemptuous sweep of her hand, leaving him with the mess to clean up, his uniform to change and bundle off to the dry cleaner's, and a sense of guilt that made him even more angry than the rest of it. Why couldn't she just accept the situation and let him protect her?


	47. Take on Me

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Take on Me"

_We're talking away_

_I don't know what I'm to say_

_I'll say it anyway_

\- _A-Ha_

Joyce finished making change for a customer, smiling at him and wishing him a nice day. He mumbled a "thank you" in return and was gone—and her smile widened when she recognized the customer behind him. Bob Newby might not be the kind of man who would have caused her heart to pound years ago, but she'd seen what happened when you got involved with men who were too sure of how good-looking they were. Bob's whole innocent, good soul shone in his eyes, and that made him the finest sight she had seen in a long time.

He held up two paper bags. Lunch! "Baloney?"

Baloney had never been her favorite, but maybe she hadn't given it enough of a chance. Joyce smiled and shrugged, willing to take whichever bag he gave her.

They sat on a bench in the sunshine outside the store. Joyce couldn't believe it was November 1 and she was sitting out here in a light jacket, but she intended to enjoy it. Cold weather would set in for real soon enough.

Bob finished his sandwich and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "Last night was fun."

"It was," Joyce agreed, through a mouthful of baloney sandwich.

He hesitated. "I'm sorry if I … overstepped anything."

She touched his arm. "No, you didn't!" The idea of taking her away from a place where such a terrible thing had happened was a generous and thoughtful one. She only wished she could explain to him why she couldn't. She only wished she could explain it to herself.

Bob nodded, but he didn't seem like he believed her. "'Kay. I mean … I just, I … I like you so much! And not just you—everything that comes with you. Your family, your boys. And I hope it's not wishful thinking, but I kinda feel like I'm breaking through with them. I mean, not so much Jonathan, he's a tough cookie to crack, but …"

Joyce couldn't argue with that one. In some ways, Jonathan had been better this past year, happier—but in others, he was more distant, even with her, than he had ever been.

Bob went on, thinking out loud, "With Will … I don't know, I feel like we're—connecting."

She smiled. "He likes you, too." Maybe not 'connecting', but Will at least thought Bob's jokes were funny, and he seemed to like that Bob made Joyce happy. He had, at the very least, not given her a hassle about Bob sleeping over last night, and he'd been okay with Bob driving him to school this morning.

"Yeah?"

"Mm-hm. I can tell."

"Good." Bob smiled. He reached for his Dr. Pepper, popping the tab. "Oh … there was something else I was going to mention. It's not a big deal at all, but—I just noticed this morning that my JVC was a little … dinged up."

"Your what?"

"The video camera?"

"Oh." Oh, no. The boys had taken his video camera and dropped it, or hadn't been careful with it. Lonnie would have gone ballistic if they'd messed up something of his. Joyce tensed, waiting for Bob's anger.

"It … it still works fine and everything, I just … I went back and watched the tape, and there were some older kids picking on Will."

"What?" Joyce was torn between relief and gratitude that Bob was more concerned for her son than for his expensive equipment, and rage that after everything he had been through, kids were still making life harder for Will. This was the kind of thing she wished she could protect him from. Maybe she should take Bob up on his offer, move to Maine, somewhere peaceful and normal. If only Will was completely well, and not so dependent on the doctors at Hawkins Lab to care for him.

"Scared him," Bob added, looking like he had been remembering times in his own past.

"Who were they? Were they the Zimmerman brothers again?" Because she was going to have some strong words with their mom. The woman had promised they'd leave Will alone last time.

"Um, I don't know. They were wearing masks and sort of makeup, and … maybe. They were the right age."

Forget their mother. She clearly didn't have control of her delinquents. This time Joyce was going straight to the source. "I'll kill them," she said vehemently. "I swear to God, I will—" She caught herself before she swore, a habit she was trying to get out of around Bob. "I will kill them."

"See, that's what I love about you. You punch back."

Joyce gave him a half-smile, not sure if punching back was really something to be admired, and Bob grimaced.

"I was never one to really put up a fight."

Boy, did she remember that. All those times Lonnie stole Bob's lunch, and Hopper leaned on him for the homework. Poor guy. She wished she could go back in time and make the guys treat him better.

Bob nodded, thinking it through. "I struggled a lot like Will when I was a kid. With bullies. It's the ones like us, that don't punch back, that people really take advantage of. You know, they rub your nose in it just a little bit more. I don't know why they do that," he finished, the hurt of it still there in his voice, making Joyce wish all the more that she could change things for him. Or for Will.

She didn't have an answer for him, though. She'd never really known why people did that, either.

"Maybe it makes them feel … powerful," Bob speculated. "But hey," he added, brightening, "look at me now. I get to date Joyce Byers. Ha!"

Joyce laughed. She wasn't sure she was much of a prize, but if Bob wanted to think so, who was she to burst his bubble? And it made her feel good that her mere presence in his life made him so happy.

"See, it all works out in the end, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does."

They kissed, soft and sweet, an affirmation that it was okay to be two normal people eating lunch on a bench, being happy. She never wanted it to end.


	48. Rain on the Scarecrow

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Rain on the Scarecrow"

_Rain on the scarecrow blood on the plow_

\- _John Mellencamp_

It had not been a pleasant morning. El was still mad about last night—and with justification, Hopper had to admit—and he was still hurt that she hadn't come out and shared the candy and watched movies with him—with less justification, he also had to admit, although he didn't want to. So he'd already been annoyed when he got to the office and started looking at maps and discovered what he had hoped he wouldn't have to discover—that the decaying crops and grasses appeared to have a lot to do with Hawkins Lab.

Of course. Who else could it be? That damn gate, he thought, grabbing his hat and maps and heading out to drive over to the facility.

He laid the maps out for Owens, showing him what he'd found.

"Grass, crops trees—everything in this area is either dead or dying, and that's a radius of over three miles. And it all leads back to here." He tapped the rectangle in the center of the map that was the lab building.

Owens tapped the rectangle as well, then traced the topographical markings with his finger. "See, these patterns here are really pretty. I like the design." He waved his hand around over the map. "It's almost psychedelic."

Hopper rolled his eyes. He'd had some hopes that Owens might take this seriously, but apparently he had overestimated the man. "Everything's a joke to you, huh," he muttered, taking a seat.

"No, it's not a joke, I just—I really—I don't understand what this has to do with me, Chief Hopper."

How could he not get this? "Whatever's happening is spreading from this place. From this lab."

"That's impossible. It's—the last burn, it was two days ago. It's contained."

"What if there's a leak?" Hopper demanded.

Owens laughed, as if the idea was impossible. "A leak? No, no."

"I don't know, man! You're the scientist."

"Exactly. And I'm telling you, there's nothing to worry about."

He might be a small town police chief, Hopper thought, but that didn't mean he had to buy a pig in a poke. "Convince me."

"Convince you?"

"Yeah." Hopper got out of his chair, leaning over the desk. "You and your egghead friends go out there to every area on this map, and you run your tests, or whatever the hell it is you do, and you see if anything comes up."

"All right, so—so, you're giving _me_ orders now?" The laughter faded from Owens's face, and he shook his head decisively. "No."

"I keep things nice and quiet for you," Hopper reminded him. "And you keep your shit out of my town. That is the deal."

It was the deal; Owens couldn't argue that. What he seemed to be arguing was that the current shit wasn't his, and Hopper wasn't buying it.

"I have done my part. Now you do yours." Hopper shoved the maps across the desk at Owens and leaned in, his voice very soft. "Convince me."

He hoped it was clear that he wasn't going to let this drop until they did, and he hoped even more that he was too valuable an asset for them to piss off, just in case he decided to tell what he knew. A few words in the right ears—they didn't even have to be true ones. A little bit of mass hysteria in town, and Hawkins Lab might well find the place too hot to hold it.

Truth be told, Hopper had absolutely no idea if he could do anything to dislodge the hold the lab had on Hawkins, or if he had any leverage whatsoever that might make them listen, but he was going to act as though he did for as long as he could, if that was what it took to keep whatever shady crap they were up to over there from spilling out onto innocent people again. Barbara Holland was dead because of them, and Benny, and others. Whatever was going on with the crops—that was someone's livelihood, someone's home, being destroyed, and Hopper wasn't going to sit by and let that happen if he could do anything about it.

Of course, he had the biggest piece of leverage he could possibly find locked in a cabin in the middle of the woods, but he would never use her as a bargaining chip, or even think about her on the Hawkins Lab property, in case they had some poor kid who read minds locked up in there doing their bidding. Besides which, if they ever found out he had her, forget leverage—he'd just be dead. They'd kill him and take her and never give it a second thought.

Owens seemed like someone's grandfather, ready to hang up his shingle and go fishing, but Hopper wasn't about to underestimate the man. He wouldn't have been brought in to fix Brenner's mess if he was as much of a regular Joe as he pretended to be.

So Hopper's job was to keep one step ahead of them, to try to out-think them and be prepared for whatever came, while trying to keep anyone else in Hawkins from knowing there was anything more to the lab than a simple military medical facility. Easy as pie, he thought to himself, lighting a cigarette as he sped away from the building, menacing in all its everyday normality. If your pie could blow up in your face at any second, at least.

An hour later he got a call from Owens, asking to meet at the pumpkin farm. When he got there, he found a crew from Hawkins Lab, in full white suits, digging up the field and carting away the rotted pumpkins. He stood next to Owens for a few minutes, watching, before Owens admitted, "Well, you were right about these pumpkins. Some nasty stuff. And that smell! Gee, mother of God."

"So what exactly do you think is going on?"

"Well, I told you what I think. But we'll run the tests and we'll see what comes up. In the meantime, I just need you to keep the area clear for us. I don't think it'll be more than a day or two."

"What do you want me to tell people?" Hopper demanded.

"I'm sure you'll figure something out." With a dismissive pat on the arm, Owens walked away.

Before Hopper could go after him, or kick a pumpkin, or do any other petty thing to show how much this situation pissed him off, his walkie crackled. It was Powell, checking in. He snatched the receiver off his belt. "Yeah."

"You remember that Russian girl Murray was going on about the other day?"

A chill moved through Hopper's veins and he immediately turned his head to look at Owens. The doctor was getting into his car. It didn't appear that he had heard anything.

Powell went on, "Yeah, well, now I'm thinking he's not so crazy after all."

"Stay where you are. Do not move." Hopper all but ran for his own car. What had Eleven done? Gotten mad at him, left the cabin, and then what? This was what he had been afraid of all these months—but not afraid enough, it seemed.


	49. Bat Out of Hell

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Bat Out of Hell"

_There's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky_

\- _Meat Loaf_

Joyce couldn't get what Bob had told her about the tape out of her head. All through the rest of her shift at work she seethed over those Zimmerman boys, always picking on her son. Maybe if she had proof, if she could tell on the video who they were, she could—talk to their mother, go to the principal, maybe even go to Hopper. Anything to take one more burden off her son's already fragile shoulders.

As soon as she got home, she found the video camera in Will's room and looked it over, figuring out how to pop the tape out of it. Only, she couldn't seem to get it to play in the VCR. The space for the tape was the wrong size. When did everything get so complicated? It used to be, you sat down, you turned on the TV, you were set. Now there were all these different machines that you couldn't use properly unless you had the right thingamabob to go in the doohickey.

Dragging the phone over to the TV, she sat down with the video camera on her lap and dialed the familiar number.

"Radio Shack. Bob Newby speaking. How can I help you?"

"Bob, it's Joyce."

"Hey, Joyce, how you doin'?"

"Hey, um, I'm trying to watch your video thingie, and the tape, it's just, it's … tiny. It's like it just shrunk."

He chuckled in her ear. From another man, that laugh when she was honestly confused and edging toward frustrated would have made her mad. From Bob, it made her feel like he was happy to help, glad she had asked. "That's because it's a VHS-C, not a VHS. You gotta find the RFP1U with coaxial cable so you can connect the video ins and outs."

Did he really think she could follow all those technical terms? "Bob. English."

"Right. Sorry. Um … Okay, the cables will be in the box the JVC came in. Can you find those?"

She hunted, eventually finding cables, and Bob walked her through connecting them to the TV, a harder task than it sounded, while she squinted at the various holes in the back of the TV and tried to figure out which ones were input and which ones were output.

"Yeah, I did the coaxial things in the back. So … this one just goes into the camera itself?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Exactly," Bob said encouragingly.

She pushed the cable in, hoping it was the right place, and the TV screen reassuringly turned blue. In a hurry to watch the tape before Will got home—or Jonathan, who was supposed to have been with Will last night, an issue she didn't think she wanted to deal with just yet—she babbled something into the phone and hung it up. Probably she should call Bob back later and apologize, she thought, pressing play on the camera. She would do that, she promised herself as the tape started playing.

The opening bit was Bob explaining how to use the camera. Joyce fast-forwarded through that section and into the trick-or-treating part. There were the people at the doors when the kids knocked, and there was Mike. She wished he looked like he was having more fun, poor kid. He'd been as traumatized by last year's events as Will had, in his own way, and no one was monitoring him. He hadn't had any help at all. If only she could have told Karen the truth—but Karen wasn't ready for the truth, probably wouldn't believe her anyway, and Hawkins Lab wouldn't have let her say anything even if she'd thought it would do any good.

Then she got to the part with the big kids coming after Will, narrowing her eyes as she tried to recognize faces through the masks.

It was painful to watch, as the bigger kids got up in his face and called him Zombie-boy and freak … but Will was used to that. If his friends had been with him—where were his friends when this was happening? The worst of it was, the kids hadn't done anything she could use against them other than the name-calling. Will's own fear had knocked him down, from what she could see, and that wasn't their fault. Hawkins Lab and the Upside Down had made Will afraid, not the bullies at his school, and there was no one at Hawkins Lab she could yell at to make that go away, much as she wanted to.

The next part was odd, though, Joyce thought, frowning at the screen. Will had dropped the camera, it seemed, and he was standing in front of it, hollering for Mike over and over again. But there was some kind of static on the screen, something—a shadow, maybe, superimposed over the picture?

Joyce paused the tape, and it froze on the image of the shadow looming over Will. It was big, and black, and it looked like it had legs … She had seen this before, she realized, with a sudden sickening drop of the stomach. Running to the kitchen, she grabbed the roll of paper she kept there, and a crayon. She knelt in front of the TV, holding the paper up to the screen, and she drew the shadow as it appeared on the video.

There was no doubt about it. She carried the paper into the kitchen and placed it on the table next to Will's drawing.

They were the same. No matter what Hopper said, or the people at Hawkins Lab, the shadow wasn't in Will's mind, it wasn't trauma. It was real, and whatever it was, it was coming after her son.


	50. Hit Me with Your Best Shot

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Hit Me with Your Best Shot"

_Hit me with your best shot_

_Fire away_

_Come on with it, come on_

_You don't fight fair_

\- _Pat Benatar_

As soon as she recognized that the image on the tape and the drawing Will had made were the same thing, Joyce tried calling the school, wanting him to be brought into the office for safety until she could get there. But they told her there was no AV club today, so Joyce ran for her car. At the school she skidded to a stop near the bike racks instead of wasting time pulling into a parking spot.

Inside the building, the AV room was empty, but she found Dustin and a red-haired girl she didn't know calling for Will. Before Dustin could tell her anything, Lucas ran in through the door. "The field," he said urgently. "The field!"

Joyce ran with the boys outside and across the field. Will was standing there, unblinking, unmoving—unresponsive. Mike was with him, trying to get him to wake up. "I found him like this," he shouted as Joyce and the boys and the red-haired girl ran up. "I think he's having another episode."

"Will?" Joyce put her hands on his shoulders. "Will?" His closed eyes were moving, she could tell that much, but he was far away. What was happening to him? This was worse than when he was in the Upside Down, when he was here in front of her and still gone away where she couldn't get to him, couldn't keep him safe. "Will! Sweetie, wake up! It's Mom!" She looked around at the boys in a panic, but none of them knew what to do any more than she did. Oh, God, if only Hopper were here. He would know what to do. Stroking Will's shoulders, then holding them firmly, she told him, "Will, wake up," in a voice he always listened to. But there was no response. Nothing. She might as well not be here for all he knew, wherever he was. His eyelids fluttered, but only the whites were visible. "Can you hear me? Will. Please! Wake up, please. Wake up! It's Mom! It's me!"

Just when she thought it was hopeless, that she had lost him for good, he gasped and opened his eyes.

Joyce pulled him close. "Oh, God, Will, I thought I'd lost you!"

"I … I … I'm … okay," he said at last.

"Are you sure? Dude, that was freaky," Dustin said. All the kids looked concerned but relieved, even the red-haired girl.

"Was it one of your episodes?" Mike asked.

"Guys. I'm fine." Will looked up at Joyce. "Can—I want to go home."

"Of course." With one arm around his shoulders, she walked him into the school, grabbing his backpack, and then led him out to the car. The other kids followed, as silent as Will was, standing on the steps and watching until she got him into the car.

It was a quiet ride home. Joyce kept looking over at Will, but he was sitting with his head down, clearly not wanting to talk. She pulled up in front of the house. "Let's get you some hot chocolate, okay?"

"Okay." There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

Joyce held off on her questions until they were sitting down and Will had some of the hot chocolate, although he didn't seem to enjoy it much, before asking him what had happened to him there in the field.

"I can't … remember," he said slowly, as if there was something keeping him from talking, like he was pushing the words past some barrier.

"I need you to try," she told him.

"I—I was on the field, and … and it all just went blank, and … then, you were there."

There had to be more to it than that. "Will. I need you to tell me the truth."

"I am," he protested, but she knew he wasn't. She'd known that voice since he was three years old. She knew when he was afraid to tell her something.

Joyce got up from the table and retrieved the drawing she had made from the tape from the kitchen, putting it down in front of him. "This shape. I saw it on the videotape from Halloween night. The same shape as your drawing." Will looked at her wide-eyed, but didn't say anything. "These episodes that you're having, I think Dr. Owens is wrong. I think they're real. But—but I can't help you if I don't know what's going on. So you have to talk to me. Please."

He looked at her, but for once in his life she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"No more secrets," she said. "Okay?"

Will nodded.

"Okay." She pointed at the picture. "Did you see this thing, again, on the field?"

Another small nod. "Yes," he whispered.

"What—what is it?"

"I don't know." This was hard for him, she could see. He was fighting back tears. But she had to know. She couldn't let this go, not for another minute, not if she was going to help him. "It's almost … more like … a—a feeling."

"Like the one you had that night at the arcade?"

"Yes." His eyes were wider and wider, shining with tears.

"Well, what does it want?" Joyce asked him.

"I don't … know. It came for me, and—and I tried." He was losing his fight with the tears. "I did try to make it go away. But it got me, Mom."

"What does that mean?"

"I—felt it—everywhere. Everywhere," he whispered. "I—I still feel it. I just want this to be over."

She pulled him close as he wept, wanting to cry with him. But she couldn't, not if she was going to help him end this. "It's okay. It's okay," she told him, even though they both knew it wasn't. She held his face between her hands. "Listen. Look. Look at me. I will never, ever, let anything bad happen to you ever again. Whatever's going on here, we're going to fix it. I will fix it. I promise." She didn't know how, but she was going to. Will was not going to suffer any more from this. "I'm here," she told him, gathering him close again.

As she held her son, Joyce looked down on the drawing. She hated that black thing already, hated it and was going to get rid of it. Somehow.


	51. We're Not Gonna Take It

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"We're Not Gonna Take It"

_Oh, you're so condescending_

_Your gall is never ending_

_We don't want nothin', not a thing from you_

_Your life is trite and jaded_

_Boring and confiscated_

_If that's your best, your best won't do_

\- _Twisted Sister_

He was waiting for her when she came back to the cabin, standing on the porch working on at least his tenth cigarette.

Eleven stopped short as soon as she saw him. He could see the guilt on her face from here, even in the moonlight. Good. She should feel guilty. She'd been stupid, going out and letting people see her, making swings whip around in front of some panicked mom, for God's sake!

Hopper stubbed out his cigarette firmly, to show her he meant business. He had left his hat on for the same reason.

She stalked straight past him, up the steps and into the cabin, banging the door in the process. So she was pissed at him? Good. Because he was pissed at her, too.

Hopper stormed into the cabin behind her, slamming the door shut behind him. "Friends don't lie!" he said, throwing her own words back at her. "Isn't that your bullshit saying? Hey! Hey! Hey!" He caught the door of her room as she attempted to shut it in his face. "Don't walk away from me!" Shoving the door open, he stood there glaring at her.

Eleven looked back at him. There was something in her eyes under the anger, some pain or sadness, and he forced himself to calm down a little.

"Where'd you go on your little field trip? Huh?" She didn't answer, so he asked again, more firmly. "Where?"

Still no answer. He recognized this—sometimes she simply couldn't find the words, or force them out. A reaction to a childhood spent speaking only when spoken to, and then in very few words.

"Did you go see Mike?" He knew that's where she would have gone. The first place.

"He didn't see me," Eleven said defensively.

"Yeah, well, that mother and her daughter did, and they called the cops." He moved into the room so he could look into her face, so he could underscore the seriousness of his next question. "Now. Did anyone else see you? Anyone? At all? Come on, I need you to think!" He was desperate now. Didn't she understand what could happen? She could be taken away from him—far away where he could never find her. She would be lost to him. Didn't she understand that?

"Nobody saw me!" she shouted at him.

Hopper walked across the room, trying to find the words, and the rationality, to make her truly understand. "You put us in danger. You realize that, right?"

Eleven shook her finger in his face. "You promised I'd go. And I never leave!" She screamed the last words at him. "Nothing ever happens!"

"Yeah! Nothing happens and you stay safe!" He slammed his hand down on the dresser. Eleven recoiled from the sound, or possibly from his anger. He was so upset, so freaked out, he wanted to cry. These past hours had told him just how important to him she was, how lost and broken he would be if he lost another girl.

But Eleven couldn't see that. She screamed at him again. "You LIE!"

"I don't lie. I protect and I feed and I teach. And all I ask of you is that you follow three simple rules. Three rules. And you know what? You can't even do that!"

She looked as though she was about to cry, and it was because of him, and all of this had happened because he fucking screwed up. Again. He couldn't take it. He turned and left the room before he said or did something he would regret.

From across the cabin, he stopped to look at her. "You're grounded. You know what that means?" He went to the refrigerator. "It means no Eggos." He threw the boxes into the trash. "And no TV. For a week." He bent to pick up the TV, but he couldn't lift it. She was holding it there with her mind. Hopper glared at her over his shoulder. He could see the blood trickling from her nose. "All right, knock it off. Let go."

Eleven shook her head.

He tried again, but couldn't lift it. "Okay. Two weeks." Still couldn't. "Let go!"

Another shake of the head.

"A month." He wished he hadn't started this with her, made this a battle of wills, but now he had and he couldn't back down. She had to understand who was in charge, had to understand that the rules were there for a reason, for her safety.

"No," Eleven said flatly.

"Well, congratulations. You just graduated from no TV for a month to no TV at all." He yanked the plug out of the wall.

This time she screamed her "No" at him. She kept saying no while she went to the TV and tried to get it to come back, fiddling with the antennas.

"You have got to understand that there are consequences to your actions."

"You are like Papa!" she shouted at him.

The shot struck home. He had never meant it to be this way. He had meant to protect her, not to imprison her. Didn't she know that? "You think I'm like that psychotic son of a bitch? All right. You want to go back in the lab?"

Eleven shook her head. He could see tears in her eyes now, but he had gone too far to stop now.

"One phone call, I can make that happen."

"I hate you!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not too crazy about you, either. You know why? 'Cause you're a brat. You know what that words means? How 'bout that be your word for the day, huh? Brat. Why don't we look it up? B-r-a-t. Brat." He tossed the dictionary at her, but she caught it in midair with her powers and sent it hurtling back at him. It glanced off his chest and fell to the floor while he stood and watched, unable to believe she would do that to him. "Hey! What the hell is wrong with you?"

With a sweep of her arm she sent the couch crashing into his knees.

He stared at her in shock. "Hey!"

Eleven turned her back on him, marching back into her room, knocking over a bookcase in the process.

Hopper kept shouting "Hey!" until he crashed into the unyielding door of her room. She had slammed it shut behind her, and was keeping it closed against him with all the force of her mind.

"Open this door!" he screamed, banging on it. "Open the damned door! You want to go out in the world? You better grow up! Grow the hell up!" He was screaming now, losing it, the anger and the pain and the betrayal getting the best of him. He couldn't stop, even as he heard her sobbing on the other side of the door.

Then she screamed, and every pane of glass in every window in the cabin shattered. Hopper stood in the middle of the wreckage of the home he had tried to create and wondered where the hell it had all gone so far wrong.


	52. On the Dark Side

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"On the Dark Side"

_The dark side's callin' now, nothin' is real_

\- _John Cafferty_

Will couldn't fall asleep that night. He lay in bed shivering, frightened, afraid to close his eyes, afraid of what he would see, afraid he wouldn't wake up. So Joyce lay next to him until he was too tired to stay awake, holding him as he cried, singing songs with him, telling him old stories from when he was a baby. By the time he dropped off she was afraid, too, afraid that if she left him he wouldn't be there in the morning when she woke up.

She had called Hopper several times last night after bringing Will home from school, and she started calling him again first thing in the morning, but apparently he hadn't checked in at work in all that time. Was he sick? If Hopper was sick and couldn't help her … She left an emphatic message with Flo that Hop needed to call her the second he got in, and slammed the phone back on the cradle.

Will was up by that point. She didn't like the dark circles under his eyes, or the fact that he didn't immediately notice how late it was and complain that she had kept him home from school, the way he often had as a child when she thought he was too sick to go.

Joyce ruffled his hair, checking his forehead. No fever. "Hey! How you feelin', sleepyhead? Any better?"

"Mm-mm."

"Same as last night, still … weird?"

"Yeah." Will sat on one of the kitchen chairs and Joyce knelt in front of him, checking his forehead again.

"All right." He felt … strange. Not feverish, but just the opposite, his skin cool to the touch. "Hm. Stay here. I'm getting the thermometer."

Will sat patiently with the thermometer in his mouth while Joyce timed it on her watch. She used to make a game of it with him, to see if he could count the seconds as accurately as the watch could, but he wasn't up for that today.

When the time was up, she checked the temp. Ninety-five. Ninety-five? That was so odd.

"Is it a fever?" Will asked.

"No. Uh … actually … it's cold. Do you feel cold?"

He thought about it, answering slowly. "No, just a little … out of it. Like I … haven't really woken up yet."

Joyce frowned at him, not sure what to do with this situation. None of the tried and true responses of parents to sick children fit when your child had the opposite of a fever.

"You promised no doctor!" Will said, alarmed by her look.

He had nearly had hysterics yesterday when she suggested calling Dr. Owens or going to the lab. Promising she wouldn't bring them into it had seemed easy then—she wasn't sure how far she trusted them anyway—but today … Still, she had promised, and what were they going to do? They hadn't believed her so far, why would they believe her, or tell her the truth, now?

"And I meant it," she assured Will. "No doctor." Treat the symptom, then, she decided. "You know what? I'm going to run you a nice bath and it'll warm you up and hopefully get you feeling better. How's that sound?"

He nodded, going along with the plan even if he wasn't enthusiastic about it.

Joyce went into the bathroom to run the water into the tub, hoping it would be this simple, but terribly afraid it wouldn't be. Leaving the tub full of warm water for Will to get into, she went back to the phone, trying Hopper again, this time at home, and getting his machine. Like always.

Will came out of the bathroom behind her. "Mom!"

"Yes, sweetie, what is it?"

"It's too hot."

She hadn't thought so, but she supposed maybe in her concern to warm up his body temperature she may have overshot. Checking on the tub, she found that Will had drained most of the water out already, the last of it gurgling away as she sat on the edge and dipped her hand in. "I—I can cool it down a little bit, baby, but we've got to get your body temp back up." Joyce reached for the taps, but was stopped by Will's emphatic "no", in a tone of voice she had rarely heard from him. Alarmed, she looked at him. "What?"

"He likes it cold."

Then, without another word, Will turned and walked away, down the hall to his room, while Joyce sat there stunned, wondering what had happened, who "he" was, and what was wrong with her son.

* * *

In the cabin, Hopper was nailing boards over the broken windows. He had been up half the night sweeping up the glass, and all this time there had been no sound from Eleven. She opened her door once or twice, saw him still standing there, and slammed it shut again without a word.

Hopper wanted to speak. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was that he screwed up so much, how much he wanted to take care of her, to explain, really explain, calm and simple, why she had to stay safe here. But no words would come.

He stood in front of her door, trying, managing a "Hey, kid."

Silence.

He considered knocking, his knuckles barely grazing the wood, but he couldn't wait for her to respond. There wasn't time for that. "Listen, um … about last night, I, uh …" God, he wanted to apologize, but it wasn't in him. He had never known how to back down from a fight, and as much as he wanted this to be the time, he just couldn't do it. "I want this place cleaned up," he said, giving an order, "and then maybe I'll consider fixing the TV. You hear me?" He shot the last words through the door, practically barking them, and fled the cabin and his own inability to talk to any of the important women in his life about how he really felt.

As he reached his car, his radio was crackling, Flo's voice calling him. He snatched up the receiver. "Yeah, yeah, I'm on my way in, and yes, I do know what time it is."

"Joyce Byers has called eight times already this morning," Flo snapped back at him as he reached for his pack of cigarettes. "Eight times! For my sake, deal with her!"

Rolling his eyes, he started the car. The last thing he needed was for Joyce to be freaking out right now.

He drove straight to Joyce's house. Her door was standing wide open. Alarm flooded him. Maybe she wasn't freaking out. Maybe this was a real thing. Maybe the thing in Will's drawing. Memories of last year made him slow down, be more cautious as he stepped inside the house. "Hello?"

"Leave it open!"

He was relieved to hear that Joyce's voice was fairly normal. She came hurrying toward him from the back of the house, bundled up in a sweater.

"Where the hell have you been?" she asked in an angry whisper.

"I … overslept. What the hell's going on? It's freezing."

She gestured for him to follow her, leading him down the hall to Will's room. The door was ajar, but she tapped on it anyway as she opened it. "Knock, knock. We have a visitor."

Will was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. He didn't turn when his mom spoke to him, or even seem to have heard her. The window in front of him was wide open—in November—and he wore only a pair of pajama bottoms.

Joyce moved farther into the room. "Will. Hopper's here."

At last Will turned, slowly, mustering up something that passed for a smile. "Hi."

"Hey, kid.

"Can I tell him, Will?"

Slowly, deliberately, Will nodded.

"This thing, the one from the picture. He said it 'got' him, Hop. This shadow thing. And—and this morning, I was going to run him a bath, to warm him up, but he wouldn't let me. He told me it likes it cold." She showed him the picture from before, and another one that she had made from an image on a video from Halloween.

Hopper looked at the two of them, listening to her story of Will at the school yesterday, and felt a chill that came from more than the cold air circulating through the house. "So this thing, this shadow thing," he said to Will. "You told your mom it likes it like this, it likes it cold?"

Will nodded. "Yeah," he whispered.

"How do you know that?"

"I just … know."

Damn, did he wish Joyce was freaking out over nothing. This … this was something. More than trauma, more than flashbacks. "Does he talk to you?"

"No. It's like … I don't have to think. I just know things now. Things I never did before."

Hopper got up, moving from the side of the bed next to Will to a chair in front of him, so that he could watch the kid's face better. "And, uh, what else do you know?"

"It's hard to explain, it's like … old memories in the back of my head, only they're not my memories."

Joyce was silent in between them, her eyes darting from Will's face to Hopper's. She was holding herself together, but he could see how afraid she was.

"Okay," Hopper said quietly.

Will went on, "I mean, I don't think they're old memories at all. They're … now memories, happening all at once, now." He was shivering, but with fear, not with cold.

"Can you describe these 'now memories'?"

"I don't know. It's hard to explain." Will's eyes were filled with tears.

Joyce sat on the bed next to him, her arm around him. "I know it's hard but can you just—can you try? For us?"

It was obviously hard for the kid. He was fighting to stay calm and trying to find words. "It's like … they're, they're growing, spreading … killing." The last word was little more than a breath.

"The memories?" Joyce asked.

"I don't know." A tear slipped down his cheek. "I'm sorry!" He buried his face in his mom's shoulder.

Growing? Spreading? He thought of pumpkins, for some reason. Hopper looked at Joyce, holding her son and trying to reassure him. Over her shoulder, he saw one of Will's drawings tacked to a bulletin board. Good drawing. The kid could draw.

Joyce followed the line of his gaze. "Hey. Sweetie. What if you didn't have to use words?"

Will agreed to try. They got him paper, and crayons, and he started drawing. Once he got going, it was like something else had taken over his arm. He was single-mindedly focused on his drawings, turning out page after page, but they all looked like scribbles. Huge swathes of colors—black and purple and blue and gray—across each page.

They took the stacks of papers to the kitchen table, trying to make sense of them.

"Joyce, this is … I'm sorry, I don't think these mean anything."

She frowned at him, and then at the pages. "They have to. He's trying to tell us— Wait." She pointed at a scribble of black on one of the pages.

"What?"

"Wait. Wait. These black lines, see?" She put another page next to that one. "Look. They connect."

Hopper stared at them, beginning to see. Pushing the furniture toward the walls to make space, he and Joyce laid the pages out, looking now for overlaps, places where the scribbles looked the same in density or thickness or color. Will kept drawing, and Joyce kept going back for more pages, and they kept shuffling pages around, trying to find the pattern.

At last they had it, her entire living room floor covered in spreading blue lines, like a river, almost. "This mean anything to you?" he asked her.

"No. Is it some sort of maze, or a road? It's sort of forking, and branching, like lightning."

"You think it's a storm?"

"That storm he drew was completely different. He used red. This is all blue and some weird dirt color."

Hopper stared at her. Something—yes, this seemed familiar, but why?

Joyce went on, "Maybe it's … roots. 'Cause remember he was saying it was spreading, and—and—"

"Killing. He said they were killing." Growing. Spreading. Killing. Roots. Pumpkins! Son of a bitch. "The vines." He got his hat and coat. "He's drawing vines." And then he left, hoping he was in time to prevent … whatever it was that was coming.


	53. In Too Deep

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"In Too Deep"

_All that time I was searching, nowhere to run to, it started me thinking_

_Wondering what I could make of my life, and who'd be waiting_

_Asking all kinds of questions, to myself, and never finding the answers_

_Crying at the top of my lungs, and no one listening_

\- _Genesis_

When a knock came at the door, Joyce hurried to open it, to send whoever it was away before … well, she didn't know what could happen, and she didn't want to. She could hear Mike calling through the door, but was surprised when she opened it to see that he was alone. Usually they were all together, Mike and Dustin and Lucas.

"Hey, Mike."

"Is Will here?" He seemed agitated. She didn't want to distress him further by telling him about Will.

"You know what, now's not a very good time," she told him.

"Is he okay?"

Joyce hesitated. But Mike had been through enough. He didn't need to know about this new development, and she wasn't sure she wanted anyone to know what had happened to Will. Deciding, she slipped out the door, closing it behind her. "You know, he just isn't feeling well. He's laying down, so I—I'll tell him you stopped by, okay," she said, all but pushing him off the porch with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

But Mike wasn't to be sent off so easily. He stood there watching her as she went back to the door. "It's about the Shadow Monster. Isn't it?"

She stopped to look at him. Mike was taller than she was now, she realized. He had grown up so much over this past year. The loss of Eleven, with whom he had clearly had a special bond, the terrible things they had all gone through … all of it had fallen nearly as hard on Mike's shoulders as it had on Will's, and he hadn't had his parents to talk to about it. Nancy had helped, some, Joyce believed, but Nancy had her own troubles coming to terms with the death of her friend Barbara.

Maybe Mike needed someone to trust him, to let him do something. Maybe Joyce needed the help of someone who understood, someone Will trusted.

"Yes," she told him. "It's about the Shadow Monster. It—it got him."

"I can help. I want to help."

Joyce nodded. "I think maybe you can." She brought Mike into the house with her, and left Will to tell him what had happened, exactly, suspecting that Will would be more comfortable telling the details to Mike than he had been telling them to her.

The day drew to a close, night falling. Jonathan wasn't home, which Joyce wondered about. She wished she could call him and tell him what had happened to Will, ask him to come home from whatever he was doing. And Hopper hadn't come back, either, and wasn't answering his phone. She had only called the police station once, to learn that he hadn't been there since he'd left her house earlier, muttering something about vines. Vines?

Will had kept drawing; the pictures were all over the house now, and there were still more of them. She looked at a stack, picking up the top picture and carrying it around, looking to see where it might fit. Finally she found the empty spot for it in her bedroom, taping it up in the blank space.

Mike was sitting with Will in his room, occasionally bringing out stacks of pictures, but mostly just talking to Will and being there for him. Joyce was grateful. She had called Karen to make sure it was okay if Mike stayed at her house, and had the impression that Karen was glad to have him away. Poor woman, she had no idea what had happened to her son, and likely wouldn't understand if she knew. Joyce wasn't sure who she felt more sorry for.

* * *

Hawkins Lab was long gone from the pumpkin field when Hopper pulled up to it. Didn't look like they had done much, really. Taken some of the rotted pumpkins away for testing, but he was sure they would say they hadn't found anything. Meanwhile … somewhere beneath this soil lay the network of vines Will had drawn. All the lab's protestations that they were burning off everything that came into this world from the Upside Down had been just so much horseshit, apparently.

Hopper could have kicked himself for being so trusting all this time, letting things build up literally underneath his feet.

He grabbed a shovel and carried it out into the middle of the field, trying to ignore the stench of the decayed pumpkins and the constant buzz of the flies around them. Then he started to dig.

It felt like he was there digging forever. The light went down, the sun nearly set, shadows advancing across the ruined field, and Hopper cursed himself for ten kinds of a fool. It was a pumpkin field. It was blighted. There was nothing more sinister here than that.

And then it happened—the shovel broke through dirt into … something else. The soil shifted beneath Hopper's feet and he nearly fell. He stabbed at the dirt with the shovel, hearing some kind of a sucking sound as it went in, and it left a sizable hole that went through the dirt to the other side.

He stepped back and chopped at the soil again and again and again, hearing that strange gurgle. It was almost as though the dirt was fighting with him, trying to tear the shovel from his hands, and he beat at it savagely.

Finally he had it open enough that a person could go through. That he could go through. It struck him that he was out here alone, that no one knew where he was—but he had to know what was going on, and the light was fading quickly. He would be in and out in just a few minutes, just check to see what was down there, he decided.

He did stop to get his flashlight before he went in, then he dropped through the hole into—a tunnel. A big one, big enough that he could stand up comfortably, and he was a tall man. It curved away from him in both directions, too. Someone or something had been working at this for a long time.

"Oh, Jesus," he muttered to himself, recognizing the white flakes floating in the air. The Upside Down. It was here, in Hawkins, and it was spreading.


	54. Welcome to the Jungle

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Welcome to the Jungle"

_In the jungle, welcome to the jungle_

_Feel my, my, my serpentine_

_I want to hear you scream_

_Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day_

\- _Guns N' Roses_

Hopper kept moving through the tunnels, trying to mark the twists and turns in his mind so he could find his way back. He wasn't sure what exactly he was looking for, but he figured he'd know it when he saw it.

Behind him, he heard some kind of a screech, and he drew his gun, turning and pointing it and the flashlight in the direction the sound had come from. But there was nothing. Nothing moved down here. Everything was dead. Decaying. You could tell by the way flakes of it floated in the air.

Moving forward, he kept his gun at the ready, just in case. Better to be safe than sorry.

The light pointed up at something that looked like a giant, brownish flower bud. As Hopper looked at it, it convulsed, spitting some kind of spores out into the air, directly into his face.

He staggered back, falling against the wall, coughing and choking, then found himself directly in front of another of those things, which spit more spores out at him.

Wiping his hand across his eyes to clear them, sputtering as he tried to breathe, Hopper turned back the way he had come, running. He had to get out of here, get to Owens, get the lab down here to burn all this shit. But he couldn't see where he was going. He kept running into the walls, stumbling over the uneven floors. It was hard to focus, hard to move, as though something in those spores was like a drug of some kind. He forced himself to keep going. All he had to do was get out, he told himself. The light was right ahead of him, he was almost there.

But then he fell, landing hard on the floor. It seemed so difficult to try to get up, such effort. He couldn't do it. The blackness closed in on him.

* * *

The entire night had gone by. Hopper hadn't called. Mike had slept over in Will's room, and that had kept Will calm, which in turn had kept Joyce calm.

She had spent most of the night sitting in the living room trying to figure out what exactly it was that Will had drawn. Vines, Hopper had said. What kind of vines? And why vines, of all things? What did that have to do with the Upside Down? She had toyed with and dismissed a dozen far-fetched theories, thinking she sounded crazier all the time.

Joyce didn't hear Will the first few times he called her name, and she jumped when he put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, searching for a sign that maybe this was over and that thing had let him go.

What he said was the last thing she expected. "I saw him."

"You saw who, baby?"

"Hopper. I think he's in trouble. I think he's going to die."

It didn't cross her mind for a second that he might be exaggerating. If Will thought Hop was going to die, then he was in real danger. Joyce felt very cold at the thought, like she'd been left outside in the winter wind without a coat. What would she do without Hopper now that she had him back in her life again? She couldn't imagine it.

* * *

Hopper opened his eyes with a gasp, remembering all at once where he was. His head was pillowed on something gross that jiggled underneath his face when he tried to get up, and it was still hard to move. The aftereffects of whatever had been in those spores, he imagined.

His flashlight was still shining, so he couldn't have been out for too long. He crawled toward it, trying to lever himself into a sitting position at least. But before he could do that, he felt a wave of nausea, vomiting up some unpleasant dark goo that he didn't even like to think had just been inside his body.

Once that had passed, he wiped his mouth and retrieved the flashlight and his hat from the ground, forcing himself back onto his feet. He pointed the flashlight up at the ceiling, looking for the opening he had left, desperate to get the hell out of here. But there was no sign of it.

Was he going crazy? He'd been almost there when he collapsed, he was sure of it. Where the hell was it?

At last he came up to a dead end. He had to have missed the opening. Or the vines had to have closed up to cover the opening, in which case—

Panic rose in him, threatening to choke him, and he forced it back down. He'd been in worse situations than this and had come out all right. He would get out of this, too. Although he wished he had stopped to call in his position before jumping down that hole. Of all the stupid, pigheaded things to do.

He thought of Eleven, alone in that cabin. What would happen to her if he never came back? So few people knew about the cabin … but Joyce did, he remembered suddenly. They'd gone there a few times in high school to drink and fool around. Eventually, Joyce would think to go there.

With that settled in his mind, he was able to keep moving, searching for another way out. This time, he was going to be ready for those spore things, though. He ripped off his uniform sleeve and tied it around his nose and mouth so he couldn't breathe that stuff in again.

He found himself at a crossroads—tunnels going to the left and to the right. Which one to take, and, more importantly, how to find his way back? Reaching into his pocket, he removed the pack of cigarettes. He broke one in half and dropped it on the ground as he took the left fork.

* * *

"Where is Hopper, baby?" Joyce asked, getting to her feet and holding Will by the shoulders. "How do I get to him?"

He tried, but the words wouldn't come. "I can see him, but I can't—I can't—"

"Draw it," Mike said urgently. "Quick."

Will nodded and hurried back to his desk. The picture seemed to be the same scribbles across the page, Joyce thought, hovering over him anxiously. When he was done, sitting back with relief, as though something that was holding him had let go, Joyce looked closely at the picture, but couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"Okay. This is where you saw him?" she asked Will. "Is this where you saw Hopper?"

"Mmhm. I think so. Yeah." But he didn't seem very sure.

Joyce picked up the page—the back of a piece of wrapping paper, because they had long since run out of any other kind—and tried to find a place where it fit in with the rest of the pages. Mike came with her, both of them searching, holding the page up against others to see if the pattern would match.

"Here!" Mike called at last. It was on the refrigerator. When Joyce held up the new page, she could see clearly now that it was a fork of some kind, where two paths converged. How did that help? Where were these paths? How was she supposed to find Hopper when she didn't know what the hell she was looking at?


	55. Dead Man's Curve

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Dead Man's Curve"

_Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve_

\- _Jan and Dean_

Joyce tilted her head to look more closely at Will's drawing. "So, Hopper is here."

"Yeah. Now we just need to find out where 'here' is," Mike said. "Right?"

"Right."

"Did he say anything? I mean, before he left?"

Joyce tried to remember. "Something about … vines?"

They heard a car outside, and both turned to look. Hope rose in Joyce's heart—she hadn't realized until just now exactly how frightened she was that something had happened to Hopper. She ran to the windows to see him, needing to make sure he was all right.

Her heart sank when she recognized Bob's car. She immediately felt guilty about it—she should be happy to see Bob. She was happy to see Bob. But she wanted Hopper. The chill of fear had settled back on her as soon as she realized he wasn't here and safe. And explaining all this to Bob would be … impossible. Not without telling him more than she wanted him to know, more than she thought he was able to handle.

As Bob got out of his car and went to the trunk to get something, she considered what to do. But there really wasn't much of a question. If she let Bob in and he saw all the pictures on the walls, Will as he was, he would want to know why, and sweet and somewhat naïve as Bob was, he was also very smart and he would know that Joyce wasn't telling him everything. No, she couldn't risk it.

Joyce went outside, shutting the door carefully behind her.

Bob came toward her with a pile of boxes in his hands. "Surprise! I would have called, but you said not to clog up the lines."

"You know, we're fine, we don't need anything …"

"When I was sick as a kid—and I was sick all the time as a kid—nothing made me feel better than focusing on these brain teasers."

"Those are great," Joyce said, forcing herself to express an enthusiasm she didn't feel. If only what was wrong with Will could be solved by brain teasers.

"I can teach you how to play!" Bob looked so happy and so excited that she felt like a heel for wishing he would just go away.

"He's sleeping," she lied.

"Okay." Bob leaned forward a little, a smile starting to spread across his face. "I could wait with you."

Joyce wished she could let him; she wished she thought he could comfort her right now. "It's just not a good time." She felt terrible about all of this, so she tried to make it a little bitter. "You know what? I'll call you. Okay?" Leaning forward, she kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you."

Bob sighed. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Well, have him call me. They don't call me 'Bob the Brain' for nothing."

Joyce smiled, remembering high school. She turned to go back into the house. Then it hit her. Bob the Brain. Brain teasers. Puzzles. Bob had always been good at puzzles. He still was. And she had this massive puzzle inside her house, and Hopper out there somewhere in danger.

"Bob!"

He turned, thrilled to be needed, and held out his arms. "That's my name!"

"Okay. So, I need your help—but I also need you to promise, really promise, that you won't ask me any questions. No questions at all."

Coming toward her, Bob frowned a little. "This sounds mysterious."

"It is. And someday I'll explain it to you. For now, no questions. You promise?"

He seemed to see in her face how desperate she was, because he nodded very seriously. "I promise."

Bob was startled by the pictures, she could see that. He looked at them for a few minutes, really taking it in, with Will and Mike and Joyce following him. At last he said, "Huh." And then, "Huh," again. Turrning to look at Will, he asked, "You drew all these? Yourself?"

Will nodded.

"Why, exactly?"

"I told you the rules," Joyce reminded him. "No questions. Okay?" He nodded, still not understanding. Joyce headed toward the kitchen and the picture of where Hopper was. "We just need you to help us figure out—" She stopped, realizing he wasn't following her, still staring at the walls. "Bob. Bob! Over here!"

Bob handed Mike the stack of brain teasers and came into the kitchen, still looking wonderingly at the walls covered in pictures.

Joyce drew a big red X where Hopper was. "Where this is," she said as Bob came toward her.

"That's the objective," Mike explained. "Find the X."

"Yeah? What's at the X, pirate treasure?" He chuckled a little at his own joke.

"Bob? No questions."

"Okay." He looked up the pictures again while they all stared at him. Then he put an arm around Joyce's shoulders and drew her away from the boys. "Let me talk to you for a sec." They went into her room. "Joyce. You can talk to me. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. What's the … problem … exactly?" She tried to look him in the eye, but she knew she wasn't telling him everything, and he clearly knew she wasn't telling him everything.

"What's the problem?" Bob looked up at the walls, at the snaky lines of drawings everywhere. "Joyce, Will doesn't look well. You don't look well. What's going on?"

"Nothing! Nothing."

"Is this an episode? Is this one of Will's … episodes?"

"No. No, no."

"I, I'm, uh, I'm sorry, I just, I don't—see how any of this is good for Will. Or for you. And even if I wanted to play along, I mean—"

Joyce was getting frustrated. All this time, and Hopper was still in danger, wherever he was, and none of this was getting her any closer to finding him, and now she was going to have to tell Bob … something, eventually.

"How am I going to figure anything out if I don't understand the context of the game?" Bob was clearly getting frustrated, too. Then he stopped talking, staring over Joyce's shoulder.

"What? What is it?" She followed his gaze to a circular arrangement of drawings on the wall.

"I know that shape. It's Lover's Lake." He looked at her, pointing at the shape, which she supposed did look a little bit like a heart, now that she thought of it. "It's Lover's Lake," Bob repeated. "I get it. Okay, I get it." He stopped in front of some drawings in the hallway. "That's Lake Jordan. And if that's Lake Jordan, then … we'll probably find—" He pointed at the wall, snapping his fingers as he tried to remember. "Yeah, that's, uh, Sattler's Quarry. And then if you just follow it, naturally, it moves to the Eno River. And there it is." Pointing, he turned to Joyce. "That's the Eno, do you see it?"

She tilted her head to the side. Maybe she saw it? It sounded plausible, anyway.

Without waiting for her to respond, Bob was off again, working it all out as he went. "Okay, so the lines aren't roads. But they act like roads. And they act like roads 'cause if you follow them you'll see they don't go over water. And that's the giveaway. That's the giveaway! Ha!" He was gleeful with his success. "Don't you get it? It's not a puzzle. It's a map. It's a map of Hawkins."

The boys and Joyce looked at him and at each other and at the wall in wonder. None of them had seen that, or even thought of it.

Bob looked over his shoulder. "Right, Will?"

"Uh … right."

* * *

Deep in the tunnels, Hopper kept moving. Whatever he did, he had to keep moving and find his way out. He had lost all sense of direction now, and he was running low on cigarettes, dropping pieces as he went in hopes they would help him find his way back where he started. He could have walked for miles and not known it—everything down here looked the same. Damn Owens, anyway, how could he not have known how extensive this was? Maybe he did, but Hopper would bet he didn't. He'd bet Owens had blinders on, wanting to think they had this under control.

He kept trying on the walkie, even though he doubted anyone would be able to hear him. "Does anybody copy? Look, if anybody copies, this is Jim Hopper, Hawkins Chief—"

Something crunched under his boot. Until now, everything had squished. Hopper stopped where he was, looking around him, to see that he was in a large room. The central chamber, he'd bet. Him, and a whole lot of bones. Something down here had been eating.

He got out his lighter to see better, and the vines lining the walls squealed and flinched when the flame came near. Fascinating.

Ripping off his uniform top and breaking a bone off one of the things on the floor that he didn't want to think too hard about, he made a rudimentary torch, holding it against the vines until they moved aside, making a hole that he tried to dig his way through.

* * *

Bob got out a map of Hawkins that he had in his car, and sat down at the table to try to figure out where the X was. Joyce and Mike took tape measures. Labeling the places on the walls that they recognized, they started trying to measure the distances.

"All right, I'm 3.6 inches," Bob called. "What have you got?"

"I'm not sure. Mrs. Byers?"

"Hold on." Joyce dragged the tape measure around the corner into the living room. "21 feet, 4 inches."

"What about Tippecanoe to Danford Creek?"

"Danford? Where is Danford?"

"Dining room!" Will called.

"16 feet, 10 inches."

"What about Danford to Jordan?"

"This has got to be enough." Rolling up the tape measure, Joyce hurried to Bob's side.

"It's not. It's really not."

"Can't you just figure it out?"

"Well, it's hard. The ratio isn't exactly one to one. If you're twisting my arm—" He looked up at Joyce. "And you are twisting my arm. I would say that the X is … maybe … a half mile southeast of Danford?"

Relief flooded Joyce. If only they were in time. She bent to kiss Bob's cheek. "Thank you! Thank you." She grabbed the map out from under him. The boys followed her as she rushed out of the room, and Bob came after them.

"What, are we really … going?"

* * *

Hopper had worn himself out trying to crawl through the wall. He was so tired, and so thirsty, and so … yeah, he was pretty damn scared that he wasn't going to be able to get out of here. He just didn't think he had it in him to dig anymore, and he wasn't getting anywhere anyway.

He sank down against the wall, moaning from weariness and exhaustion and discouragement. It was hard to breathe; he kept coughing up stuff. He took his cigarettes out of his pocket. They wouldn't help with the cough, but at least he'd feel somewhat normal with one in his hand.

Before he could light it, though, he felt something moving up his leg. One of the vines was snaking its way across his boot and upward. And then another.

"Son of a bitch!" He got to his feet, trying to run, but the vines are already around both feet, and the ankles, and heading toward the knees. Hopper reached for his knife and started cutting through them, but as fast as he cut one three more came in its place. They were all over him now, curving up his back and around his shoulders, pulling him down to the ground, keeping his arms spread so he couldn't cut them anymore, tugging his head down while he pleaded. "No! Wait, no no! No!"

But it was too late. They were over him now, and he thought of Eleven, and then, inexplicably, of Joyce, before blackness took him.


	56. Don't Dream It's Over

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Don't Dream It's Over"

_There's a battle ahead, many battles are lost_

_But you'll never see the end of the road_

_While you're traveling with me_

\- _Crowded House_

Joyce drove through the darkening night, wishing she knew how to pray, desperately wanting to get there and find Hopper and end at least this part of her ever-growing nightmare. She didn't think she could face what might be happening to Will without Hopper at her side. She loved Bob, she did, but … he didn't make her feel safe, not the way Hopper did.

"There's nothing," Mike said anxiously, watching out the side windows. "There's nothing here."

"Are we close?" Joyce demanded of Bob, who was squinting as best he could in the darkness at the map he was holding.

"We're in the vicinity."

"What's that mean, 'vicinity'?"

"It means we're, we're close! I mean, I don't know, it's not precise."

"But we did all that work!"

"I told you, the scale ratio is not exactly one to one, now we need to—"

"Turn right." It was Will's voice, coming suddenly from the back seat after he had been silent the whole way here.

Joyce looked at him over her shoulder. "What?"

"I saw him."

She turned back to look through the windshield. "Where?"

"Not here; in my now-memories."

"In your what?" Bob asked.

Joyce hated that they had a term for this thing being stuck in her son's brain, but for the moment she would use it to find Hopper.

"Turn right!" Will said again, determined this time.

So Joyce turned right, the wheels skidding on the packed dirt of the road before they caught on the softer dirt of the field. They burst through a pumpkin patch sign, hay bales and everything, all of them screaming as the car went a little out of control, but she didn't stop. Not until she was practically on the bumper of Hop's police vehicle.

She looked around at everyone else in the car. "Are you okay?" They seemed to be.

Mike glanced at Will. "Super spy."

Bob was fixed on the car. "What's Jim doing here? Joyce?"

But Joyce couldn't stop to explain. Hopper was here, she was sure of it. Now they just had to get to him. "Boys, I need you to stay here," she told them as she got out of the car.

Behind her, she heard Will. "No, Mom, Mom, it's not safe!"

"That's why I need you to stay here," she told him. "Stay here!"

Bob got out on the other side. Joyce slammed her door and then went out into the field, yelling for Hopper. There was a crater in the field, with an abandoned shovel lying along the edge of it. She went down into it, with Bob's anxious "Hey, be careful" following her.

In the center of the hole, she saw them. Slimy and disgusting, just like she'd seen in the Upside Down. They looked like— "Vines," she whispered. She pointed at the shovel. "Give me that."

Taking it from Bob, she chopped down into the vine things viciously, and they both recoiled as something splattered up at them. Angry now, she took out all her fears and frustrations on the vines, hacking away at them with the edge of the shovel until they receded from the edge of a hole in the ground. Hopper must have made it, she thought, which meant he was down there somewhere.

Tossing the shovel away, she looked up at Bob. "I need you to help me get down there."

"Joyce. What are you talking about?" He was freaking out. If she had been less afraid for Hopper, she would have felt sorry for Bob, stuck in the middle of this situation that he could never have imagined and couldn't possibly understand. But she was terrified that they were already too late, and she didn't have time to catch Bob up or reassure him.

"Bob!" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "Now!"

Against his better judgement, he lowered her in. Standing in the tunnel, she looked around, trying to get her bearings. God, there was so much of it. It went off in both directions as far as she could see. How would she ever find Hopper down here? She yelled for him, again and again, as Bob dropped through the hole behind her.

He was even more stunned than she was. "Joyce, what is going on? Where are we?"

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

"Tunnels!" he said, as though everything had suddenly become clear to him. "Is this Will's map?"

Joyce dug his flashlight out of his coat pocket and started shining it down the tunnels. "Hopper!"

"Are we in Will's map?" Bob asked again.

Still yelling for Hopper, Joyce pushed past him without answering—time enough for that later—and started down the tunnel.

"We're inside Will's map," Bob marveled, following her through as she flashed the light around and called for Hopper again and again. "How do you know all this?" he asked her.

She came to a place where two tunnels forked. Which one? How to know? Remembering how much of her house the map of these tunnels had covered, she thought she could be down here for days looking for Hopper and never know where she had already been.

Then the light shone on something white, something that didn't belong down here in the midst of the dirt and the vines. A piece of a cigarette. "Bob!" she shouted. "Over here!" She showed it to him. "See? It's his. He's got to be this way. Come on."

Bob didn't answer, and Joyce couldn't stop to explain or answer questions. She hurried down the tunnel, her eyes on the ground, looking for more clues, still calling Hop's name.

At last they came into a room that was different than anything else they'd seen—bigger, and covered in bones, not in vines. The flashlight settled on Hopper's hat, abandoned next to a flashlight in the middle of the floor. He was here. Oh, God, was he still alive? Had she come too late, after all this?

Joyce trained the flashlight across the floor, and nearly missed him, he was so covered in vines. Only a hand and the white sleeve of his undershirt showed.

"Oh!" She and Bob went down on their hands and knees, pulling the vines off Hopper. They were wrapped around his neck, choking him … but at least they weren't down his throat, she thought, trying not to remember what Will had looked like in that horrible decaying library.

They got the vines far enough away that Hopper woke up. "Knife!" he gasped.

"Knife!" Joyce hunted for it across the floor.

Bob pointed the flashlight, the light catching on the metal blade. "It's over there."

Picking it up, Joyce started hacking through the vines, which screeched as she cut them. She cut Hopper's left hand free and gave him the knife and let him take his own revenge on the things that had almost killed him, yanking at them even as he cut through them.

At last they got him free and on his feet. Joyce was nearly in tears, so relieved to see him alive and in one piece. She put her hands on his shoulder and cupped his face, trying to reassure herself that he was really okay. "Hopper!"

His arms came around her, too. "Joyce." He held her shoulders, and for a moment there was nothing else, just the two of them, just their relief at seeing each other again.

But only for a moment. Hopper looked around. "Hey, Bob."

"Hi, Jim."

The vines were still moving, practically under Joyce's feet, and she screamed, holding on to Hopper for safety, this time, turning—

And she saw a person standing there, in a full suit like the ones they had worn into the Upside Down, and screamed.

The person gestured for them to go, and they went past, Hopper stopping only to retrieve his hat. Behind them, they could hear the flames begin as the man in the suit began burning the vines. They screamed as they burned.

It was over, Joyce thought as she ran through the tunnels. It was over, and Hopper was safe, and it would be okay.

And then she climbed through the hole and realized that the screaming she was hearing wasn't coming from the vines—it was coming from her son, who was convulsing in the middle of a field of rotten pumpkins. Nothing was over—it had only just begun.


	57. Come Undone

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Come Undone"

_(Can't ever keep from falling apart_

_At the seams)_

\- _Duran Duran_

Joyce had rarely felt as terrified as she did in the mad rush from the pumpkin field to the lab facility. Yes, it had been hard and frightening to have Will lost where she couldn't get to him, but this—watching her son in terrible agony, unable to do a thing to stop it—this was worse.

Bob ran with her, and Mike, both of them as helpless and lost as she was.

* * *

Hopper, already pissed at himself for the whole vine debacle today, was subjected to the further indignity of being hosed down to get all that crap off him. The fully suited lab guys were not gentle, unsurprisingly, and he felt every bristle of the rough brush they used.

Meanwhile, he felt as though over his own yells, mostly of annoyance, he could still hear Will screaming. And because of his own colossal stupidity, he wasn't there to help, to hold Joyce's hand, to try to figure out exactly what was wrong with the kid. No, he was stuck in here like a criminal being taken to jail. Because he was an idiot who didn't use backup, didn't tell anyone where he was going, didn't leave a trail so he could find his way back … If someone who worked for him had made all those mistakes on a single mission, he'd fire them.

* * *

Weeping, Joyce fought to stay at Will's side, to keep holding his hand—the only thing she could do for him. But the lab people pushed her out of the way. Not meanly, she'd give Owens that. His whole focus was on Will, and what he could do for Will, and she couldn't blame him for thinking Will's hysterical mom might be in the way.

Will was in agony, writhing and shrieking. They asked him where it hurt the most and even through the oxygen mask they could hear him screaming "EVERYWHERE!", the sound torn from him. Bob held Joyce, his familiar arms some comfort in the midst of this—at least she wasn't alone—but she couldn't take her eyes off Will, wanting desperately to be able to understand what was happening to him, so that she could help.

At last they gave him something from a syringe, and he fell back, finally quieted.

"He'll sleep now, for a little while," Dr. Owens said. "Mrs. Byers, I think you'd better tell me what's been going on with him."

"Oh, now you believe me?"

He put his hands on her shoulders. "There isn't time for that. After we help Will, you want to yell at me, tell me I didn't take this seriously enough, beat me up a little, I'll stand still and let you. I promise. But right now we need to work together. Okay?"

She didn't like it, but she saw his point. "Okay."

Owens glanced at Bob and Mike. "You two wait here, keep an eye on him, be a familiar face in case he wakes up?"

Mike nodded, his eyes big and worried, but Bob stepped toward Joyce. "I'll come with you, if you want."

"That's sweet, but—I have to do this alone." Hawkins Lab would never let him in anyway. Joyce squeezed his hand. "I'll be okay."

Reluctantly, he let her go, sinking into a chair next to Mike.

Joyce went with Owens to a conference room full of men in white lab coats. Useless men who hadn't done a single thing to prevent this from happening to her boy.

"Something's changed since last time I saw you," Owens began.

She nodded. "Thursday I went to the school and I found him in the field. He was—he couldn't see me or hear me, wasn't moving. When he came out of it, he told me it 'got him', said he felt it everywhere. Since then, he … he has these, he calls them 'now-memories', like he knows what that thing is thinking. It's how we found Hopper. That thing … it did something to him."

"And these now-memories, as you call them? How long has he been experiencing them?"

"I told you, since Thursday. Since I found him in the field."

One of the other men asked, "Then why wasn't he brought in?"

"I have been bringing him in," Joyce snapped. "And what have you done? Nothing. Nothing."

"These are … new symptoms, Joyce," Owens argued.

"No. No, he has been telling you over and over that something's wrong and you said it was all in his head. You said 'be patient'. Those were your words!" She sat back, disgusted with the whole lot of them. Letting this happen and then wanting to blame her for it. No way.

"I understand that you're upset, okay? I get it. And I would be, too, if I were in your shoes. But we are all in the same boat here, and I just need you to try—"

Joyce couldn't take another second of being condescended to. She broke into Owens' monologue. "What, stay calm? Trust you?" She glared at the whole tableful of them. "No. I want him transferred. To a real hospital."

"Well … you know that's not possible," Owens said.

One of the others spoke up. "He really will get the best treatment here, Mrs. Byers. The very best."

Did they think she was stupid? Yep. That's what it was. They thought she was stupid. And hysterical. And all sorts of other things that people had been thinking about her for years. Looking around at the blank faces, all completely unreadable, she asked, "And what are you treating him for, exactly?" She got to her feet, glaring down at them all. "Can anyone tell me what's wrong with him? Can a single person in this room tell me what is wrong with my boy?"

They all looked at each other and back at her and no one answered her.

"What is wrong with my boy?" she shouted, slamming her hands down on the table.

But she hadn't expected an answer, and she didn't get one.


	58. Stand by Me

_Thank you for reading!_

* * *

"Stand by Me"

_When the night has come_

_And the land is dark_

_And the moon is the only light we'll see_

_No I won't be afraid_

_Oh, I won't be afraid_

_Just as long as you stand by me_

\- _Ben E. King_

They had left Hopper alone after they hosed him down. Alone with a set of clean hospital scrubs to wear instead of the gown, and a bucket to throw up into. And throw up he did, until he was so empty he couldn't imagine there was anything left … and yet that gross black stuff still kept coming. He tried not to think about what kind of long-term effects there might be of all the gunk he had swallowed.

As he was retching one more time, the door opened. Owens' voice sounded from behind him. "All right, cowboy. Good news. We're giving you the green light." He stopped in front of Hopper. "How you feeling?"

Hopper made the effort to grin at him. "Never better."

"All right," Owens said, taking that for the 'fuck you' that it was. "Well, got a present for you." He gestured to the man who had come in behind him, who stepped forward with a hazmat suit, helmet and all, in his arms.

"The hell is that?"

"There's something you should see." Owens wasn't trying to deflect anymore. Which was a good thing, because Hopper didn't really feel up to decking him, which he would have had to do if Owens had tried to lie to him again.

He put the suit on over the scrubs and followed Owens down the familiar hallways. They came through a set of sliding doors he didn't remember from before, and stepped into a room filled with those floating flakes of decay. The Upside Down was still open, then, somehow.

Owens gestured for him to get on an industrial elevator with an open cage, so he did, feeling it wobble unpleasantly beneath his feet. Once he was on, it was lowered through a hole in the floor, far below, in pitch darkness. Until a light was suddenly switched on and Hopper saw what they had been hiding from him all this time.

It was massive. A long, red, pulsing slash in the world, with those vine things lacing across it.

As they continued to move lower, Owens spoke, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. "All living organisms develop defense mechanisms against attack. They adapt. They find some way to survive."

At the bottom, more people in full suits were moving around. Hopper stepped off the elevator, looking around him. Tunnels snaked away from him in every direction. The lab people were trying to hold it off, he could see that—but he could also see that they were failing. "Oh, my God."

"It's pretty impressive, isn't it? It's been spreading. Growing beneath us like some cancer."

"Why aren't you burning it?"

"There's a complication."

* * *

Will was sleeping, still sedated, and Mike had finally fallen asleep in his chair with a blanket over him. Bob drew Joyce aside. "I know you said no questions, but—"

"No, I know, you have to know now. I'm sorry, I never wanted this to be your problem."

"Hey." He put one hand gently under her chin and lifted her face so she could look him in the eye. "Your problems are my problems. That's the way I want it. I want … you, Joyce, and everything that comes with you. No matter how hard, or scary, or … unbelievable."

"Bob." She reached up and kissed him, touched by his generosity. "I … don't know where to start. I guess—Will wasn't lost in the woods last year. He was lost … somewhere else. Somewhere—it's like here, only it's dark, and cold, and everything is decaying."

"How did he get there?"

"There was a girl. She—"

"That Russian girl people talk about?"

"Yes, only she wasn't Russian. She was raised here, and she had—powers."

"Like superpowers?" Bob asked, looking skeptical.

"Yes. Just like that. She could lift things with her mind. She could open doors into this other place, this Upside Down, she called it. She had opened a giant one, just downstairs in this building, when she was scared, and then she ran away. Mike found her." Joyce glanced at him, making sure he was still asleep. "He took care of her. I … never believed Will was gone. I could feel him, there in the house. And he kept trying to call me, only he couldn't get through. So I went to Hopper, and he—he believed me." She would never forget how that had felt, knowing she wasn't alone, that Hopper was on her side. "He helped me get back here, and he talked the lab into letting us go into the Upside Down to get Will. Only … there was a creature, they called it the Demogorgon, and it—it got Will. It almost killed him." Tears were gathering in her eyes as she added, "He's never been the same since."

"No, he wouldn't be, would he?" Bob looked at Will over her shoulder. "I always thought he was pretty cool, but now—what a brave little kid."

It warmed Joyce all through that he saw that. "He is. He really is." She swallowed against the tears. "We've been bringing him here, hoping they could help him, but he keeps having these … episodes, where he feels like he's back there. They told me it was all in his head," she said bitterly, "but clearly it wasn't. There's this giant shadow thing that's been following him, and it—it got inside him, somehow. It's in there now, inside my boy."

Bob put his arms around her, holding her until she had control over herself. "You could have told me. Really. I would have believed you."

"It's not the kind of thing you go around talking about, and I—" She hadn't wanted to scare him off, but she didn't want to say that. Joyce pulled away from him. "They made me sign like a thousand documents. We—we all had to. We had to! I mean, I lost track at a certain point. They're going to make you do the same, I'm sure."

"Yeah," Bob agreed, a little hesitantly. "Whatever." He didn't look so sure, though, and after a moment he asked, "What kind of documents?"

"I don't know. Confidentiality, official forms saying that nothing ever happened. Which is why –"

"Will got lost in the woods," Bob finished, looking at Will.

"Yeah."

"Man. I always thought stuff like this happened in movies and comic books. Certainly not in Hawkins, and certainly not to … someone like you."

"Or you."

"Yeah." Bob bumped her hands with his, carefully, since they were both now holding hot cups of coffee.

The chill from the tunnels clung to Joyce despite the coffee, and the clean scrubs, and the blanket, and Bob. She wondered about Hopper. He had been down there so long—was he going to be okay?

Bob gave her a little smile. "Bob Newby. Superhero." He looked back over at Will and shivered.

"Cold?"

"Just a little jitters, I guess." He looked down into Joyce's eyes. "Hey, don't you start worrying about me. Okay? I'm fine. I'm fine. It's not like you didn't warn me. 'This is not a normal family'. Isn't that what you said?"

Joyce managed a smile. "Yeah."

Bob chuckled. "You weren't kidding." He glanced at Will again and then looked back at Joyce. "Kind of makes my idea of moving to Maine sound a little less crazy, right?"

"Oh, it's not crazy at all." After today, the idea of getting out of Hawkins sounded downright sane.

They smiled at each other. For a moment, Joyce felt safe. Like there was a future ahead of her where they could be a family, happy and … normal.

"Mom?" It was Will's voice, slurred with sleep.

"Hey!" Joyce put her cup down and hurried to his side while Bob left the room to call for a doctor. "Sweetie, how you feeling? You okay?"

Bob came back in. "They're on their way." He leaned over Joyce's shoulder, smiling at Will. "Hey!"

Will looked back at him blankly. "Who is that?"

"What?"

"It's me, big guy. Bob." He reached for Will's hand, but Will snatched it away, looking up at Bob with fear and suspicion in his eyes.

"Are you a …" Will paused, looking Bob up and down. "Doctor?"

"No. No, it's just me. Just—just Bob." He and Joyce exchanged a worried look.

Joyce looked back at Will, feeling the chill that had started to go away coming back full force. He had forgotten who Bob was. That could not be good.


End file.
